Key takeaways
- Pandan’s candy, earthy, vanilla-like flavour profile enhances espresso.
- Rising Southeast Asian diaspora and Gen Z demand drive the mainstream rise of pandan.
- Recent pandan is scarce in Western markets, so powder works finest for Western cafés.
- Espresso retailers should recognise the Southeast Asian cultural roots and heritage of pandan.
Pandan, a tropical plant lengthy a part of South and Southeast Asian delicacies, is showing on espresso store menus globally for its visible attraction and distinctive flavour.
Its lengthy, blade-like leaves are used extensively in cooking – from aromatic rice dishes and curries to puddings, muffins, and conventional drinks. Many draw flavour comparisons with vanilla: heat, candy, and deeply fragrant.
“Think about if matcha and vanilla had a child. There is identical sweetness and creaminess as vanilla, however combined with the botanical greenness of matcha,” says Mavis Pangantihon, supervisor at Panther Espresso Wynwood in Miami, Florida. “It’s very herbaceous. In contrast to matcha, although, it isn’t grassy or oceanic.
“Pandan has a distinct ‘greenness’ to it; it’s extra floral,” she provides. “It’s a ‘savoury-sweet’ expertise. It tells your mind you’re consuming one thing toasted, whereas your tongue tells you that you’re consuming one thing floral.”
Past its distinctive flavour, pandan produces a vivid, naturally derived inexperienced color, which is placing sufficient to rival matcha in visible attraction.
You might also like our article on whether or not ube is an enduring development in espresso retailers.
Why is pandan trending?
With its photogenic color, advanced flavour profile, and deep cultural roots, pandan is gaining reputation in espresso and past. It has been featured alongside hojicha, ube, and taro as one of many substances most probably to comply with matcha’s meteoric success, even incomes a point out within the New York Occasions’ “12 Predictions for Life in 2025.”
Pandan’s rise is a part of a broader wave of Southeast Asian flavours permeating Western tradition. Ube went from a distinct segment Filipino ingredient to a grocery store staple inside just some years. Taro adopted the same arc, supported by the booming bubble tea market. Pandan seems to be subsequent in line, carried by a rising Southeast Asian diaspora and extra curiosity in attempting new flavours.
A key driver of this momentum is pandan’s attraction to health-conscious shoppers. The plant has historically been used to assist digestion, relieve joint ache, and assist regulate blood sugar. It additionally comprises antioxidants, positioning it alongside matcha and turmeric within the useful beverage area – a class that continues to develop as shoppers search extra intentional selections.
Social media is amplifying the development. Gen Z, specifically, is gravitating towards visually arresting, coffee-adjacent drinks, and pandan delivers on each counts.
“It has this very vibrant inexperienced color, making it very camera-ready,” Mavis says. “I additionally suppose that extra espresso purists are embracing these flavour profiles as a result of these substances complement and stability out the style of espresso.”
The world over, espresso retailers are providing inventive scorching and iced drinks that includes pandan as a key ingredient. “Espresso professionals have began to make use of totally different, extra distinctive substances and flavour profiles to raise fashionable menus,” Mavis provides. “It’s thrilling to see these flavours being experimented with extra.”
Incorporating pandan into espresso store menus
The query any café proprietor will ask earlier than committing to a brand new menu merchandise is whether or not it’ll promote. In contrast to purely novelty-driven substances, pandan has a centuries-long culinary historical past. It’s additionally extremely versatile, appropriate for lattes, lemonades, iced teas, chilly brew infusions, and baked items.
“It acts like vanilla. It pairs with the espresso as an alternative of contrasting it, highlighting the nuttiness of espresso,” Mavis explains. “There’s a familiarity with pandan even you probably have by no means tried it earlier than.”
In Panther Espresso’s Buko pandan latte, Mavis describes the flavour dynamics at play: “Pandan acts because the ‘fragrant glue.’ Espresso has these deep, earthy notes. The coconut milk is good, tropical, and creamy. Pandan sits proper within the center. It has this botanical, virtually ‘toasted rice’ high quality that connects the earthiness of the espresso to the sweetness and creaminess of the coconut milk.”
For espresso retailers, pandan provides significant menu differentiation and appeals to a number of shopper segments concurrently – health-focused, culturally curious, and aesthetically pushed. Southeast Asian cafés have additionally demonstrated that leaning into progressive, culturally rooted choices builds robust buyer loyalty and engagement, a mannequin transferable to Western specialty espresso markets.
Recognising pandan’s cultural roots
That stated, sourcing pandan shouldn’t be with out challenges. Recent pandan leaves are troublesome to search out outdoors Asian grocery shops in most Western cities, which creates provide chain challenges for high-volume espresso retailers. Client training can be an element; most Western espresso drinkers are nonetheless discovering what pandan is, not to mention the way it tastes.
“Dwelling in Miami, contemporary pandan leaves will not be a quite common discover. I experimented with totally different extracts and powders produced from dried pandan leaves and located that the extract didn’t style proper and gave a really unnatural color,” says Mavis. “Finally, I made a decision the powder was your best option. Not solely was it the best choice for flavour, but in addition a fast and environment friendly approach to make the syrup.”
Maybe a very powerful consideration for Western cafés including pandan to their menus is how they body it. Mavis, who drew her inspiration from the Filipino dessert buko pandan salad, is direct in regards to the dangers of cultural flattening: “It’s essential to focus on cultural reference when including substances like pandan to a menu.
“The largest mistake Western cafés could make is appearing like they’ve found a brand new miracle ingredient. Pandan has performed a task in Southeast Asian heritage for hundreds of years and deserves greater than being simply one other ‘superfood’ development.”
Pandan is a flavourful, useful, and culturally wealthy ingredient that has earned its place in espresso retailers.
As Southeast Asian flavours proceed to reshape international meals and beverage tradition, pandan’s mixture of visible attraction, culinary versatility, and genuine heritage positions it as a long-lasting menu merchandise in espresso retailers.
Loved this? Then learn our article on whether or not matcha is dropping its cultural identification.
Photograph credit: Panther Espresso
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