If you’re reading this, you’re probably aware of the recent deluge of “functional beverages” flooding the market. The list of benefits provided by these products is almost unending – gut health, skin quality, sleep quality and a libido boost – to name a handful.

It’s easy to see the appeal. These products offer a much more palatable alternative to creating your own supplement stack and cut through the noise of conflicting research. Why waste your time on pills and powders when you can experience the same benefit from a carbonated drink, milkshake or coffee?

Well, why indeed? Let’s examine the booming functional coffee market to see if the hype is justified. 

What is functional coffee?

Put simply, functional coffee is a blend of traditional coffee with additional health-boosting (functional) ingredients.

What does the functional coffee market look like today?

If you searched for “functional coffee” today, most of the results would be adaptogenic coffee blends including ingredients such as mushrooms, and ashwagandha. In many ways, this was a logical starting point for the industry. Adaptogens have a calming effect on the body, combatting some of the negative side-effects many coffee-drinkers experience. Drinking an adaptogen enriched coffee is a great way to experience the focus and energy boost provided by natural caffeine without experiencing jitters or crashes.

More recently, brands have been starting to experiment with a range of functional ingredients. Nootropic coffees, for example, promise improved cognitive performance provided by supplements such as L-Theanine.

Do these products actually work?

The health food and beverage market, as a whole, should always be approached with a degree of scepticism. As long as there is money to be made, the effectiveness of certain functional ingredients will always be exaggerated, and we are far from reaching a consensus on the ingredients that do and do not work.

That being said, the functional coffee market appears to differ from the wild west of the pills and powders supplement world. Ingredients appear to be carefully chosen and dosed. Most functional coffee brands also seem aligned in their commitment to their customer’s wellbeing and the use of predominantly natural ingredients. 

What does the future hold for the functional coffee market?

There is no doubt that the functional coffee market is here to stay. Unlike the traditional supplement market, which appeals to a relatively niche market, functional coffee has the potential attract a much broader audience. A warm morning beverage is a much more appealing proposition than a cocktail of miserable powders and pills for the general consumer.

Coffee, in particular, makes a lot of sense, as a functional beverage. It is a staple, some would say a ritualistic, component of the morning routine of the majority of UK adults. Functional coffee brands are not asking their customers to make any behavioural changes but simply to swap in their brand in place of their usual coffee of choice.

In conclusion, the functional coffee market has the potential to lead the march of functional beverages towards the mainstream. It is not inconceivable that a growing selection of functional ingredients could find themselves included in various standard supermarket products in the future. Ice cream that’s good for your gut? Superfood cocktails? Adaptogenic custard creams? The sky’s the limit.

Our advice

If you’re going to buy a functional coffee, make sure you know what you’re spending your money on. The best brands will include substantial dosages of the most well-researched ingredients and will most likely have solid reviews as a result. It is always a good idea to cast your eye over a systematic review of a specific ingredient on PubMed before joining the bandwagon of the latest trend.

Some functional ingredients (generally the most effective ones) are much cheaper than others so it’s also worth ensuring you are not being ripped off my brands that skimp on the high-quality stuff.

Within every pouch of Aura Coffee, you'll only every find the most research-backed functional ingredients, precisely dosed to provide holistic benefits for a specific aspect of wellbeing. Take a look at our Athletic Performance boosting coffee today!