This is the first time I've heard of creamer and everyone seems to be shitting on it.
I guess I haven't missed much.
Are there good ones? And do many people actually use this instead of milk?
Or is this just another one of those american culture things that us foreigners will never understand?
Shit's terrible. If you like coffee with cream and sugar you can put this garbage in your cup and have a chemical stew that resembles cream, sugar and some sort of flavor like "french vanilla" (which isn't).
It's "cream" that is mostly sugar and flavor other than cream. Most of them are also non-dairy, hence why the first cream is in quotes. The word "creamer" generally refers to the non-dairy cream substitutions for coffee.
Coffee creamer is bizarre. It makes everything you add it to taste sweet, oily and industrial yet it's so popular in some cultures that it's considered a no-brainer.
Well, there are over 5 billion lactose intolerant people out there. Coffee creamers do typically include a very small amount of milk derivative, but it's not enough to make a difference if you don't have a dairy allergy.
I think a good approach is to only use it as a light sweetener, I only pour about 5g-10g of creamer into my lattes. Coffee mate's Hazelnut creamer is the only flavour I tolerate, the rest taste too synthetic.
It's been said but heavy cream is a great alternaive, I use about one tablespoon per mug. Sometimes I add a tiny bit of vanilla extract and a small amount of powdered sugar to the cream and whip it with an electric frother.
A dairy free alternative is oat milk, the thicker store bought ones are great, but I usually make my own. Just blend a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of oats to 2 cups of water in a blender for 30 seconds and strain through coffee filters or some salvaged fabric from an old shirt. It can be heated and frothed, then poured over the top of your coffee for a nice foam.
To be honest though, usually if I'm not feeling like straight black coffee I just add 1/2 tbs of brown sugar and that's more than enough for me.
I use like less than a tbsp of coffee creamer for coffee.
The flavour is so artificial that any more will make me feel sick. It just tastes like soap.
Many coffee creamers also taste terrible, I'm very surprised at the popularity of them overall.
I get a specific kind that I can bear and I put a very small amount and it works for me. I don't like milk. Black coffee is okay but I do like it with creamer more.
Not everyone can get coffee beans within a few days of roasting. You need to cut the butter taste that builds up with something to get the same effect.
Because... somewhat ironically, if you've indeed made that spelling error, I've also found that a tiny bit of butter (actual butter, not margarine), a teaspoon, stirred until totally melted into the coffee, can give a much more rich and varied taste to what would otherwise be too bitter and... 'sharp', I guess.
Probably wouldn't work so well with instant coffee... but I've always just gone with a darker roast of some kind, either grounds or beans that I grind with a cheap grinder, and then just use an old fashioned french press.
I guess I just prefer significantly more bitter and less sweet coffee than about 1/3rd of the people who've read this...
I spent 6 months in Italy. I spent another 6 months in Jamaica. I spent another 6 months in 5 different European countries. I've had really fuckin bad coffee everywhere.
Everyone's entitled to as much caffeine as their bodies can handle, but it is pretty odd to 'love coffee' but actually love 'coffee-flavoured hot milkshake'. Like saying 'I love fruit' but really meaning 'I love apple jacks pop tarts', it's not wrong, just a bit odd.