Why Does Coffee Taste Better When Someone Else Makes It for You?

Summer is officially here, and with warm weather comes the perfect excuse to walk to your neighborhood cafe and pick up an iced coffee treat. And truly, there’s something *extra* delicious about kicking back with a cup of coffee that someone else made for you. The coffee just tastes better, even if it’s similar to what you’d make on your own.

TikTok's Gabrielle Dianee recently went viral for breaking down her, what she calls, “current delusion” of putting her coffee in a disposable to-go cup to try to capture the same feeling she’d get if she bought it. People flooded the comments of her post with messages about how they can relate to this urge. “It tastes better that way, too. I swear,” one wrote. “It scratches my brain differently,” another said. 

While the convenience factor is undeniable, experts say there’s more to a to-go coffee than just being easy. Here's what experts have to say about why we love a to-go coffee so much.

Why does coffee taste better when someone makes it for you?

There are likely a few things happening here. Taste is a perception, and it can be influenced by internal and external factors, explains Gail Saltz, MD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of Medicine and host of the How Can I Help? podcast. 

While the coffee technically doesn’t taste any different when someone makes it for you (unless their technique is actually better than yours), the experience of someone doing something for you is powerful, says Aaron Brinen, PsyD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “It’s that interpersonal experience and a show of caring,” he says. “We’re tribal creatures and we respond strongly to that.”

Brinen says that this gesture can cause a release of feel-good chemicals like serotonin in the brain, making you feel cozy when you’re sipping on your coffee. That can influence your taste perception, he points out. 

Brinen says he’s personally experienced this. “Even when I made the coffee earlier, if my wife brings a cup to me, it tastes better to me than when I had a cup I had made earlier in the day,” he says. 

Buying a cup of coffee at a store that someone made for you can have a similar effect, according to Thea Gallagher, PsyD, a clinical assistant professor at NYU Langone Health and a cohost of the Mind in View podcast. “You get a little dopamine bump,” she says. Even if the coffee is the same as what you’d drink at home, “it feels like you’re buying yourself a treat,” Gallagher says. 

There may even be an evolutionary instinct at play, according to Brinen. “Humans have the ability to come together and to organize,” he says. “That is what has allowed us to survive and ultimately thrive.”

As a result, someone handing a cup of coffee to you can tap into a biological urge to rely on others. “Way back when, some people hunted and others gathered,” he says. “We’re biologically designed for that.” So next time you seek out a special treat, know that biology and evolution may have a hand in it.

Some people are more susceptible to this taste perception than others, though. “It’s not universal that coffee tastes better if someone makes it for you,” Saltz says. “But for those people who associate someone making coffee for them as either a treat, or an expression of love and caring, or a reflection of getting themselves something special, then this can give a psychological boost to the way they are perceiving their coffee taste.”

This taps into the experience surrounding coffee, too.

Many people mentally link their coffee with having some downtime, and getting a literal break from having to make your own cup can make the drink’s taste even better, according to Saltz. 

“It may be associated with a lovely morning or a justified break in the afternoon, or even a dessert-like ending to a meal,” Saltz says. “These are all associated experiences which can be additive to the ‘just a drink’ experience.” 

Brinen co-signs this. “Coffee people love their rituals,” he points out. And, W+G is always a big advocate of going on a walk for your mental health. Why not add a delicious beverage as well?

Can this happen with other foods and drinks, too?

Short answer: Yep. While Gallagher points out that coffee is unique in that so many people have rituals and emotional associations around the drink, she says you may feel like food and other drinks taste better when someone makes them for you, too. 

“It’s all about your associations with these things and what they mean to you,” she says. So, if your mom always made grilled cheese for you as a child when you needed a pick-me-up, it might taste better when you buy it at a restaurant versus making it for yourself at home. 

On the flip side, if someone gives you a food you’re neutral about, like carrot sticks, you may not have that same taste perception. 

How to mimic this feeling by yourself

If you live with someone, Brinen says that asking them to make you a cup of coffee here and there can help to capture this feeling. If they make you a cup without you asking, the “taste” may be even better due to the kind gesture, he adds. 

But, you can still capture the sensation of having someone make your coffee for you at home alone. “Consider buying the same syrups that you can get at your local coffee shop and have a mug that makes you feel good,” Gallagher says. This can help tap into that emotional feeling of someone making your coffee by mimicking the actual taste, she adds. 

Saltz recommends doing “anything positive” that you can when you drink your coffee to enhance the experience. That may be adding cinnamon to your drink, using a milk frother, or listening to relaxing music. “Adding something positive to the experience can enhance the experience and the taste,” Saltz says. 

And, if you get the chance, consider making a cup of coffee for someone special in your life. If nothing else, you’ll love hearing about how great it tastes.