Unfiltered.

Buttering Up With The Trendy Bulletproof Coffee Option At Green Grocer.

Welcome to Unfiltered, our weekly feature that explores the Dallas coffee scene — and how it often manages to thrive in the most unusual places. Given that we live in a time when Starbucks locations are about as prevalent as the golden McDonald's arches, when new coffee shops seem to open every other week and when almost everyone uses a ChemEx to brew their coffee, we're here to show you some alternatives — for when your coffee shop routine becomes monotonous or when you're just looking for something different in your caffeine endeavors.

Green Grocer.
3614 Greenville Avenue.
Lower Greenville.

Google “weird coffee trends” and among the first results you'll see will talk about the recent trend of mixing butter with coffee.

Yup: Butter in coffee.

At first glance, the concept may seem like some weird and unfortunate display of over-indulgence — or like someone got stoned and added a stick of butter to their coffee one morning and it took off across the internet. But, no, that’s not the case. There's actually some method to this madness.

The trend of bulletproof coffee, as the concoction has become known in some circles, finds a couple of tablespoons of grass-fed butter being blended with one tablespoon of MCT oil (medium-chain triglycerides, like palm or coconut oil) and blended into a cup of coffeeto make for a frothy, decadent drink. It’s also supposed to be good for you — in moderation, at least — as the fats and oils are said to promote fat burning.

Our curiosity about the drink led us locally to the Green Grocer. The neighborhood market, which focuses on local and organic food stuffs, is one of the few places in town where the drink is featured among a variety of other options at its combination juice and coffee bar.

“We kind of wanted to keep a pretty classic coffee menu,” says owner and head stocker Cassie Green about the drink selection at the relatively new coffee bar. “We wanted to keep it really simple – and not too frou-frou.”

The menu — designed by Green's husband, Gary Stephens — is in fact pretty straightforward, perhaps to balance out the wide selection of juices offered. The beans used here are supplied by friends over at Noble Coyote Coffee, whose beans make up the base of the bulletproof offering.

Green Grocer's version of the drink consists of a cup of Noble Coyote brew with grass-fed butter, coconut oil and a dash of cinnamon added for flavor before all of the elements are married together in the blender. The result is a mixture that's slightly denser than regular coffee, and less foamy than a macchiato since butter is essentially just another form of cream, not unlike half and half. The cinnamon adds just the right amount of flavor to the rich drink, meshing with the butter and coconut oil in an almost dessert-like fashion.

Sipping it, you'd never guess the drink was supposed to be good for you (even if the jury jury is still out on that one). But, regardless of its potential health implications, the drink is indeed a welcome change of pace from the cluster of milk-based drinks you can find on just about any coffee menu in town — although Green Grocer serves those too for the not-so-daring.

But the coffee bar isn't the only thing done well here. When visiting Green Grocer, you also have the option of trying one of the freshly made juices or healthy pre-made foods provided from behind the counter. But the addition of coffee to the market's fare has already very much helped the shop solidify its place as a stop in its clientele's morning routines.

“It's really helped to make us a unique place to stop by,” Green says. “Then people see the other cool-unique stuff that we have. It's actually been a really cool complement.”

All photos by Kathy Tran.