Cheese Is The Unexpected Ingredient You Should Add To Cold Foam Coffee

Do you enjoy cold foam on your cold brew? Really thick whipped cream? Cream cheese frosting? If you answered yes to all of these, you should consider making cold foam with cream cheese.

Cream cheese cold foam is essentially loose whipped cream with a bit of cream cheese stirred in. It's a method to give your sweetened cold foam a subtly tangy and extra decadent twist. By mixing sugar, milk or half-and-half, whipping cream, a pinch of salt, and a dollop of cream cheese, your cold foam gains a new layer of flavor and thickness, but should still maintain a drinkable consistency.

If the ratio is too heavy on the cream cheese, you might end up with something akin to cream cheese frosting — delicious, but not quite the sippable texture ideal for floating atop your cold brew. If you inadvertently push the boundary too far and make your cream cheese cold foam too dense, simply dilute it with more milk or whipping cream.

Another name for cream cheese cold foam is "cheese cap," originating from Taiwanese cheese tea. But don't worry, they're not brewing tea with cheese. It's a similar concept: a cold foam topping for iced tea — typically black tea, matcha, or oolong. The slightly sweet, slightly salty, slightly tangy, and very creamy cheese cap complements the somewhat bitter, tannic notes of black tea and matcha.

The practice is believed to have started around 2010 with Taiwanese street vendors as a late-night drink option. From there, it spread to other Asian countries, becoming particularly popular in China. It began gaining traction among milk tea and bubble tea enthusiasts in the U.S. around 2017 and 2018.

The concept is to provide tea with the same foamy layer as a cappuccino, making it poetic that it's now becoming a coffee topping. As cold foam coffee becomes a mainstream way to enjoy cold brew coffee, cheese foam is likely to find its way into mainstream cafes alongside olive oil coffee and pistachio cold foam. It's already making waves in TikTok foodie videos, with users like @Foodieeshh developing a red velvet cold brew with cream cheese cold foam.

The short answer is no, adding cheese to your drink is not weird at all. The longer answer is that it's okay if you're a little skeptical at first, but bear with us. After all, it wasn't long ago that the new craze involved topping espresso martinis with parmesan (even if it's a little disappointing in real life). In fact, if you don't like the tanginess of cream cheese, you could substitute it with mascarpone — for example, using mascarpone to make whipped cream is an extra-decadent way to enjoy gourmet hot chocolate. Once you dissociate the idea of melty fondue or blocks of hard cheese from the silky richness of cream cheese, the concept of topping your cold coffees and teas with it becomes less of a stretch for those new to the combination.

That said, if you're feeling more adventurous, several food cultures around the world have embraced the practice of pairing coffee and cheese in the ways you might first imagine! The Scandinavians have a tradition called kaffeost, where they put chunks of bread cheese into their coffee. In Panama, they add mild and soft queso blanco to their coffee. If cheese cold foam becomes a staple treat for you, it could open up an entirely new world of coffee and cheese experiences.