Fruit Becoming The New Trendy Beverage Upgrade For Your Coffee – CoffeeTalk

Fruit coffee has become a popular trend in the San Francisco Bay Area, with mango, pineapple, and avocado being among the popular options. This trend originated overseas in 2019, when Nestlé launched fruit coffee drinks in the Asia-Pacific region with yuzu coffees in Indonesia. Black coffee costs more to buy than it has in about 50 years, and in China, that cost has swelled as fruit prices dipped. In Indonesia, local business Koji Kopi Jinjing has cut costs by introducing pink berry lattes, swirly medleys of strawberry, milk, and espresso, while Lucky Cup, a brand boasting a playing card-looking King with the swagger of Colonel Sanders, released its “Golden Pillow” durian latte. Now, a handful of coffee shops in the Bay are leading the way in experimenting with fruit coffee stateside, including Not Latte, Outset, and sinus-clearing wasabi coffee pop-up Shiver.

Not Latte, founded by Heng Qiu and Amy Kuang, is known for its viscous and verging on a milkshake, with mild sweetness. The durian latte from Irving Street’s Not Latte is viscous and verging on a milkshake, with mild sweetness. Owners Heng Qiu and Amy Kuang claimed their outfit sold the first fruit latte in the U.S. It was a big claim. In many ways, this trend emerged in the Bay thanks to Not Latte.

Outset, a pop-up from Bay Area superstar baristas Suno Choi, Kevin Chen, and Wei An Liang, debuted inside Paper Son in September 2024. Shiver is the only spot in San Francisco where you can sidle up for a nice tall glass of wasabi coffee. At the debut event, the wasabi latte was free: they wanted an accessible introduction. “It’s been a polarizing drink,” Chen says. “For good reason.”

Outset Coffee also offers wasabi coffee, which is a multi-layered fruit coffee in a plastic cup. The avocado coffee at Outset requires a bit of stirring before enjoying or some just drink it by tier. The wasabi is Choi’s contribution to the on-again-off-again pop-up. When researching for the menu, Choi zoned in on wasabi from the jump. He wanted to make it work no matter how much the wasabi needed to transform to land pleasantly in the cup. The end result is a mild impact that doesn’t blast the nose in that characteristic blob of wasabi fashion.

These drinks seem less strange when considering China’s M Stand, which blends olives into its coffee drinks. The Chronicle’s Cesar Hernandez predicts a harder, savory profile for 2025. New-ish Richmond District cafe Pixlcat Coffee rolled out a strawberry-rimmed drink in February. Kingmaker Coffee Movement dipped toes into the space with a lemon and smoked apple drink. In the East Bay, Nora Haron, the chef-owner of SanDai, one of the only places in the country offering now UNESCO Intangible Culture-designated Malaysian breakfasts alongside a menu of Nusantaran cuisine; she’s of Indonesian and Indian descent, with family in Bandung. Her avocado coffee uses Oakland original Mr. Espresso for the beans and hit Walnut Creek in 2022 thanks to SanDai’s breakfast arm, Kopi Bar. Her bar and Kopiku on Lombard Street might be the only outposts for Indonesian coffee drinks, including the avocado kopi, in the Bay.

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