How San Francisco Became Fruit Coffee Proving Grounds in the United States

There’s a divisive coffee trend drawing battle lines throughout the Bay Area. Love it or hate it, mango, pineapple, and avocado have shouldered their way into your cup of coffee. Fruit coffee has arrived in the United States. The beachhead? The San Francisco Bay Area.

This trend joined the zeitgeist overseas years ago. In 2019 Nestlé launched fruit coffee drinks in the Asia-Pacific region with yuzu coffees in Indonesia. There’s an obvious reason fruit coffee might land: Black coffee costs more to buy than it has in about 50 years. In China, that cost has swelled as fruit prices dipped, according to tech outlet KrAsia. In Indonesia, local business Koji Kopi Jinjing has cut costs by introducing pink berry lattes to its customers, swirly medleys of strawberry, milk, and espresso, while Lucky Cup, a brand boasting a playing card-looking King with the swagger of Colonel Sanders, released its “Golden Pillow” durian latte. Now, a handful of coffee shops in the Bay are leading the way in experimenting with fruit coffee stateside including Not Latte, Outset, and sinus-clearing wasabi coffee pop-up Shiver.

Take the durian latte from Irving Street’s Not Latte; it’s viscous and verging on a milkshake, with mild sweetness. Secret San Francisco noticed the braggadocious nature of the debut: Owners Heng Qiu and Amy Kuang claimed their outfit sold the first fruit latte in the U.S. It was a big claim. It’s also true. In many ways, this trend emerged in the Bay thanks to Not Latte.

Kuang was the mind behind Not Latte at first, observing the fruit coffee trend blasting off in China. She then brought on Qiu to the project, to handle operations. The pair started by trying out basic recipes — mango and avocado to start. “My initial thought is ‘This is going to be gross,’” Qiu says. “But it was surprisingly good.” Realizing fruit coffee was destined to be a hit, they transformed Kuang’s boba tea space on Irving Street into the first Not Latte.

The idea was to reach mainstream coffee drinkers, though. That’s where Qiu came in for branding. From the jump they had audiences captivated, with the San Francisco Chronicle clocking the launch. However, Kuang and Qiu parted ways in 2023, laying the groundwork for Qiu to launch his own fruit coffee spot, Outset. He wanted to keep focusing on real fruit, pairing coffees with ingredients like a chef might compose the elements of a dish.

He points to the osmanthus latte as one of his Outset’s most popular drinks. Complex, balanced, and complementary, the osmanthus latte relies on longjing tea or Chinese Dragon Well tea to balance the coffee’s bitterness. All that accentuates the notes of the Onyx Coffee Monarch blend — a nutty Colombian, forming the backbone of the drink. It’s a tea-forward, mellow option compared to two big hits: the toasted banana latte and the orange juice Americano. Both are exactly what you’d expect. And both are big-time popular.

On the vegetal side of the cuisine-driven coffee spectrum, take Shiver. The pop-up comes from Bay Area superstar baristas Suno Choi, Kevin Chen, and Wei An Liang. The outfit debuted inside Paper Son in September 2024. Shiver is the only spot in San Francisco where you can sidle up for a nice tall glass of wasabi coffee. At the debut event, the wasabi latte was free: they wanted an accessible introduction. “It’s been a polarizing drink,” Chen says. “For good reason.”

Paolo Bicchieri

The wasabi is Choi’s contribution to the on-again-off-again pop-up. When researching for the menu, Choi zoned in on wasabi from the jump. He wanted to make it work no matter how much the wasabi needed to transform to land pleasantly in the cup. The end result is a mild impact that doesn’t blast the nose in that characteristic blob of wasabi fashion. The latte’s crowned with a bit of shiso, too. Still, after the first sip there’s a sting, a kick, followed by a bit of sweetness.

These drinks seem less strange when considering China’s M Stand, which blends olives into its coffee drinks. The Chronicle’s Cesar Hernandez told me he predicts a harder, savory profile for 2025. Still, new-ish Richmond District cafe Pixlcat Coffee, known for creamy einspänners, rolled out a strawberry-rimmed drink in February. Kingmaker Coffee Movement dipped toes into the space with a lemon and smoked apple drink. And in the East Bay there’s Nora Haron, the chef-owner of SanDai, one of the only places in the country offering now UNESCO Intangible Culture-designated Malaysian breakfasts alongside a menu of Nusantaran cuisine; she’s of Indonesian and Indian descent, with family in Bandung. Haron’s avocado coffee uses Oakland original Mr. Espresso for the beans and hit Walnut Creek in 2022 thanks to SanDai’s breakfast arm, Kopi Bar. Her bar and Kopiku on Lombard Street might be the only outposts for Indonesian coffee drinks, including the avocado kopi, in the Bay.

Outset Coffee

Haron’s coffee journey started at San Jose’s Crema — before running the commissary program at Blue Bottle and opening Drip Line in West Oakland — she’s changing the game with this drink. When she visited Indonesia the spring before opening, she noticed cafes using fruit powders. To make it Bay Area-friendly, she upped the quality and made it vegan. The drink relies on thickened oat milk and condensed coconut milk with layered espresso on top. “From the beginning people loved it,” Haron says. “People were so curious. Today, it’s our best seller.”

Funnily, when asked about fruit coffee, Haron thinks about cascara. It’s a light tea made from the coffee cherry itself. If you think about it, fruit in coffee makes a ton of sense: coffee is the seed of a bright red cherry. So, the trend is going nowhere but up.

Qiu sees a ballooning future for these drinks. In March 2024, Not As Bitter arrived in New York City’s East Village to much TikTok mania. Los Angeles shop Kumquat dropped its Spiced Apple Cider Mule in October: espresso, ginger beer, a slice of dried apple floating on top. But San Francisco can say it was throwing fruit in the mix way before it was cool. “Like Blue Bottle back then, a concept will emerge,” Qiu says. “Something will emerge out of this trend that offers creative, high-quality coffee across the states.”

Kopi Bar