Costco’s Latest Iced Coffee Drop Has A Lot Going On

Iced coffee should be simple. Iced coffee is simple. Well, in its base form, anyway. I’m personally quite a big fan of an easygoing combination of cold coffee, milk, and ice, with no accoutrements, syrups, or cold foams in sight. But I’m increasingly feeling like I’m alone in that preference. The likes of Starbucks, Dunkin’, and 7 Brew have turned iced coffee into a canvas upon which virtually any flavor can be painted, and virtually any mix-in can be mixed into. Increasingly, we’re seeing iced coffees not just with vanilla, chocolate, or caramel, but with things like protein and fiber to increase their functionality. 

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Which brings me neatly to Costco’s latest drop, a nutrition-forward iced coffee that might just double as a gym drink. Turns out, we’re not over protein in everything. 

Bulletproof High Protein Iced Coffee

Functional nutrition company Bulletproof has just dropped its new High Protein Iced Coffee in Costco stores in certain LA locations, as well as in the Northwest. This is actually an instant iced coffee: It’s a bagged, powdered product that you mix with water or milk, à la whey protein, before adding ice. You can then, of course, build any more flavors you want on top of it: Add your own cold foam, creamers, syrup, what have you. 

Bear in mind, though, that doing that might take this coffee away from its whole purpose, which is to serve as a nutritionally robust pick-me-up. As you might have imagined from its name, Bulletproof has a long history of creating bulletproof coffee (and products that emulate or deliver its potential benefits), and its High Protein Iced Coffee has many of the same traits. Each serving contains MCT oil, as well as 12 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. It’s also especially caffeine-rich, with about double the amount you’d get in a standard cup of coffee. The whole point of this thing is that it’ll supercharge your performance – but for those of you who are especially caffeine-sensitive out there, you have been warned. Maybe skip this one in the afternoon.

And Is It Any Good?

If reviews for Bulletproof’s other coffees are anything to go by, we’d say it probably is! This Bulletproof High Protein Iced Coffee formulation may be new, both to Costco and to its collection, but it’s sold other high-protein coffee products for a minute now. Over on Delish, a reviewer noted that while another of its high-protein iced coffee blends does have a fairly whey-forward flavor, it’s a big hit if you like lattes, and if you prefer your coffees to…well, not taste too much like coffee. That might sound like it flies in the face of the point of iced coffee, but think about how many flavors there are out there that morph this drink into tasting absolutely nothing like the base drink. It’s not like Bulletproof is an outlier here — and importantly, its products taste good. If you’re in the market for a protein-rich caffeinated instant drink, give it a try.