Butter coffee blends strong black coffee with unsalted butter and MCT oil until emulsified and frothy.
What it actually is
A high-fat drink. Blending is essential — stirred butter simply floats as a slick. Emulsified, it produces a rich, creamy, latte-like texture with no dairy sugars.
The claimed origins
Often attributed to Tibetan butter tea, which is a genuine tradition using yak butter and salt at altitude, and is a different drink for a different reason.
The health claims
The marketing around butter coffee has claimed improved focus, sustained energy and weight loss. Those claims are not supported by good evidence, and this site is not the place for nutrition advice.
What is factual: it is calorically dense, roughly 200 to 450 calories depending on quantities, which is a meal rather than a drink.
The taste
Genuinely pleasant if you like rich things — creamy, smooth, with the coffee’s bitterness cut by fat much as milk cuts it.
Making one
250 ml strong coffee, 10 to 15 g unsalted butter, a teaspoon of MCT oil, blended for thirty seconds.