Food & Drink

This Hot Sauce Is Meant for Coffee

Ujjo Hot Sauces Skip the Vinegar, Using Warming Spices to Enhance Your Morning Cup

None
Image: Ujjo

Hot sauce in coffee doesn't seem like a particularly good idea.

Unless you're pranking a friend. 

In which case, great idea.

But if you enjoy drinking coffee, adding hot sauce to your cup might be the quickest way to ruin that cup.

Ujjo feels differently. This upstart company created a hot sauce that wants to make your favorite coffee even better.

It started as a joke. The founder threw some hot sauce into her coffee and found it to be, as expected, terrible. But this experience spurred a side hustle that turned into a real business. One dedicated to doctoring your coffee with complementary spices that actually make sense—think about chai, or pumpkin spice lattes.

ujjo hot sauce
Ujjo

Most hot sauces are made with high doses of vinegar, salt and garlic. Three delicious ingredients, but not great partners to coffee. So Ujjo hot sauces skip this route and instead lean on a combination of warming spices, subtle sweeteners and powdered chilis.

You've got two options: the Dark Roast Blend and Light Roast Blend. The former has notes of cinnamon, cocoa, vanilla and molasses, and the latter has a bright flavor with ginger, cayenne and citrus. Both are gluten-free and vegan.

The glass bottles of hot sauce are available individually, as a pair, or packed in smaller, plastic bottles that are meant for travel—say, if you want to spice up your food at the office or on a plane.

These sauces don't have to be used exclusively in coffee. The company also suggests dashing some sauce into tea, cocktails or on desserts like ice cream—whatever you think these flavors might enhance.

Ujjo also sells some clothes, like T-shirts and sweatpants, plus a tote bag and a travel mug. Just in case you get really into this.

Elsewhere on the Daddy

More Food & Drink