Tasty or Travesty? We Tasted Salted Egg Yolk Coffee Syrup

Salted egg yolks are buttery, rich, and delicious. And in the past few years they’ve become more commonplace in the U.S. than they’ve ever been before. Seriously, the flavor is majorly hyped in restaurants—and now in our packaged foods.

Torani, a coffee syrup brand that’s found in restaurants and coffee shops across the country, just crowned salted egg yolk its 2022 flavor of the year, saying it’s “the culmination of years of global market and flavor research, resulting in an undeniably delicious, trend-forward ‘it’ flavor ready for widespread discovery.” Capitalizing on global ingredients and marketing them to a wider audience for financial profit isn’t anything new, and it’s often controversial (ahem, Trader Joe’s), but is this coffee syrup worth it? Does the intensely savory salted egg yolk flavor that’s beloved in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines stand a chance in this sweet elixir?


New Product

Torani Salted Egg Yolk Coffee Syrup

The flavor here is salty, savory, and rich. Is it made from salted egg yolks, though? It doesn’t list egg yolks in the ingredients, only natural flavors and beta carotene (for color). There’s also no cholesterol, protein, or fat in the nutritional info, so I highly doubt this was made from egg yolks. Still, the taste is quite unique and almost malty.

To me it tastes like the popcorn Jelly Belly jellybean. It’s salty, savory, and almost a bit nutty. I didn’t like this in coffee; but I would honestly destroy a milkshake made with the stuff. This plays well with sweets, no doubt. I usually hate it when companies try to get in on the next global food trend (it reeks of greed), but there is a use for this, albeit a narrow one.

Rating:

6.5/10

Sporks


About the Author

Danny Palumbo

Danny is a comedian, cook, and food writer living in Los Angeles. He loves gas station eggs, canned sardines, and Easter candy. He also passionately believes that all the best chips come from Pennsylvania (Herr's!). If you can't understand Danny when he talks, it's because he's from Pittsburgh.

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  • Salted egg yolk is a flavor that’s increasingly more common in Chinese style desserts and pastries, I think that’s what they’re going for here. It’s supposed to be specifically salted duck egg yolk, and it’s great in things like mooncakes and shortbread, but I don’t think it would work in coffee. Weird decision, Torani.

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