Have you ever been drinking your coffee in the morning and thought, “You know what this needs? A couple of Scovilles.” Right, me neither, but it nonetheless is a thing that someone has thought. And not just thought but took actionable steps towards bringing into existence. Thus we now have Ujjo, “the first hot sauce for coffee,” and it’s live on Kickstarter now.
Some of you have likely already concluded that hot sauce in coffee sounds terrible—I mean just irredeemably, stomach-turningly awful—but what this article presupposes is, maybe it’s not? And Ujjo, which means “fire” in Konkani, has reimagined what a hot sauce could be in order to make it more agreeable with your morning cuppa. Gone are the vinegar and garlic and in their place are a blend of warming spices reminiscent of “mulled cider or Grandma’s pumpkin pie.” Think things like vanilla extract, allspice, and cinnamon. A touch of sweet comes from the addition of sugar alcohols.
But it wouldn’t truly be a hot sauce without heat. And Ujjo provides a “tingly” heat thanks to a proprietary blend of chilis that “won’t make the last few sips of your drink feel like torture.”
For the Kickstarter, Ujjo comes out of the gate with two flavor options: the Dark Roast Blend and the Light Roast Blend. The Dark Roast aims for “roasty and toasty” with doses of brown sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla, while the Light Roast goes “tangy and tingly” with a touch of cayenne and ginger. Per the campaign, Ujjo works as well on coffee as it does on tea, ramen, stir fry, or even pizza. Does that mean it is actually good on any of them? I dunno. If we all got a D minus on a test, didn’t we all technically do equally as well even if we all did very, very poorly?
Really, there’s only one way to find out and that is to try Ujjo for yourself. With just over four weeks left to go on the campaign, Ujjo has already reached it $5,000 goal, so if you choose you back it, you’re gonna get some coffee hot sauce. For as little as $22, you can get yourself a 5oz bottle of both the Dark Roast Blend and Light Roast Blend.
But it's gonna be a no for me. I love me some spicy foods, hell, I even make my own hot sauce (smoked fresnos ftw), but what I love even more are the flavors inherent to a perfectly brewed cup of filter coffee. Drinking coffee after having your mouth spice blasted is generally an unpleasant experience, one that I won't be actively courting. Unless it's like, an Ujjo latte, which actually sounds pretty good now that I think about it. I think I'm maybe back in on the coffee hot sauce? It's complicated.