Nutritional supplement maker Soylent recently released a coffee-flavored formula called Coffiest. Is it really the best breakfast you can eat? Learn more in our Soylent coffee “Coffiest” review.
What is Coffiest?
Coffiest is Soylent’s coffee product. Soylent is best-known for making their nutrient-rich superfood – something you can purportedly eat every day to stay alive (without eating anything else).
Soylent coffee works in a similar way: Soylent claims it’s a nutrient-rich breakfast that can replace your coffee and morning food at once.
Soylent announced the release of Coffiest on August 9, 2016. The new offering has the same ingredient makeup as the standard Soylent formula, but it comes with coffee flavoring.
What’s In It?
If you’ve ever had Soylent, then you know it’s a beige liquid that claims to give your body everything it needs to survive. It has a weird (not necessarily unpleasant) taste. Coffiest is mostly the same – it just has coffee flavoring and caffeine instead of the standard Soylent flavoring.
It has a nutritional makeup of 47% fat, 33% carbs, and 20% protein calorie distribution (the same as the mixed Soylent 2.0 product).
The main difference here is that there’s an additional 150mg of caffeine per serving along with 75mg of the popular nootropic compound L-theanine.
There’s about 400 calories in each serving and it provides 20% of your recommended daily values of all different types of vitamins and minerals.
Who’s It For?
Soylent’s Coffiest is for anyone who likes waking up with coffee in the morning, but also wants their coffee to be healthy and nutrient-rich.
Coffiest is also marketed towards those who skip breakfast. It’s a convenient and tasty option you can enjoy in the morning without disrupting your routine.
What’s the Big Deal with the Coffee Flavor?
Adding coffee flavor to foods and supplements is notoriously difficult. It’s not as simple as just dumping a bunch of ground up coffee into a vat of formula. Coffee flavor is easily lost during processing.
In an interview with ArsTechnica, a spokesperson for Soylent explained that “coffee flavor is extremely complex”. They ended up going for a darker roast:
“The direction I gave was a little bit of a more darker, richer roast…so it’s a little darker coffee. A little bit of cocoa powder, just a barely perceptible amount, but it rounds out the flavor nicely.”
Soylent has achieved a fair bit of success, but many people can’t get past the flavor. Early versions of Soylent came with an odd, artificial flavor aftertaste and an unpleasant level of sweetness. It tasted (and looked) unnatural.
In any case, Soylent claims their food and flavor scientists worked out a flavor system that combines natural coffee extracts with an “artificial flavor system”. This system survives processing and provides a pleasant dark coffee flavor to the customer.
Why the L-Theanine?
If you’re an experienced nootropic user, then you’re familiar with L-theanine. L-theanine is a compound found in green tea that works as an anxiolytic, which means it has anti-anxiety effects.
In layman’s terms, L-theanine is thought to “smooth out” the harsh edges of caffeine. Many people take it to avoid jitters, anxiety, and other unpleasant side effects of caffeine. It’s typically taken in a 2:1 stack, which is why Soylent went with a 150mg caffeine/75mg L-theanine split.
Soylent Coffee Ingredients
Coffiest actually uses algae oil as a source of fat. It’s a totally vegan-friendly formula. Here are the ingredients:
Filtered Water, Soy Protein Isolate, Maltodextrin, High Oleic Algal Oil, Isomaltulose, Natural Coffee Flavor, Canola Oil, Coffee powder, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Oat Fiber, Alkalized Cocoa Powder, Isomaltooligosaccharide, Soy Lecithin, Potassium Chloride, Tricalcium Phosphate, Magnesium Phosphate, Salt, Choline Chloride, Gellan Gum, L-theanine, Sodium Ascorbate, Sucralose, Zinc Sulfate, Niacinamide, dl-alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Ferric Orthophosphate, Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Gluconate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Manganese Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Thiamin Hydrochloride, Chromium Chloride, Biotin, Sodium Selenite, Folic Acid, Sodium Molybdate, Phytonadione, Vitamin D, and Vitamin B12.
In terms of nutritional value, each serving contains 21 grams of fat (32% daily value), 300mg of sodium (13% DV), 37g of carbs (12% DV), and 20g of protein.
Each serving also contains 20% daily value of all of the following vitamins and minerals: vitamin D, iron, vitamin A, vitamin K, riboflavin, vitamin B, vitamin B12, pantothenic acid, iodine, zinc, copper, chromium, calcium, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin E, thiamin, niacin, folic acid, biotin, magnesium, selenium, manganese, molybdenum, and choline.
There’s also 15% of your daily recommended value of chloride.
New Soylent Bar Also Announced
At the same time Soylent announced their Coffiest, they also announced Soylent Bar. Like Coffiest, Soylent Bar is vegan-friendly. It’s basically just a protein bar that, like Coffiest, contains algae. In this case of the bar, Soylent is using an ingredient called an algal flower, which provides protein along with fat and fiber.
Each bar contains 250 calories and has a breakdown of 38% fat, 43% carbs, and 19% protein.
Stay tuned for more information about Soylent’s Coffiest coffee as we move forward!
