Forum: lifehacks.stackexchange.com
Tags: <food><substitute-tool>
Title: Mixing coffee without a spoon
Question: I often encounter a situation where I have coffee, hot water, sugar, and Styrofoam cups, but no spoon. How do I effectively mix the ingredients?

Answers:
sents: text: Pour solid ingredients into a cup Pour about a third of a cup full of liquid into the cup Swirl cup gently until mixed Fill cup with remainder of liquid
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2527/Lighthart
score: 21
sents: text: Use some other utensil.
text: Or some object, such as a chopstick, straw.
text: Or pour the mixture back and forth between two styrofoam cups until it's blended.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2687/whitewings
score: 16
sents: text: If you already have coffee and a cup, you're done .
text: Pour coffee into cup, let sit for a while (optional), and drink.
text: Not to need any of that extra fufu (i.e. cream/sugar) in the first place is the ultimate life hack.
text: Result = drink coffee anywhere regardless of the availability of "condiments".
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2692/Erich
score: 12
sents: text: My method is a variation of one of the other answers.
text: I add the milk and sugar to the cup and swurl then add the coffee.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2664/SmiteSmith
score: 4
sents: text: Coffee stirrers.
text: Go to Mcdonalds or anywhere that is a chain restaurant and take a couple extra when you're there.
text: You're overpaying for their food anyways, may as well take a couple of cheap plastic stirrers!
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2775/Demisemihemidemisemiquaver
score: 2
sents: text: When it is clear that it is only me drinking this coffee
text: I use this trick
text: : I take a first sip and, while still having the cup in drinking position, I "blow" the coffee back into the cup so that the created turbulences sirres up the sugar at the bottom.
text: I always wondered if this is considered inhygenious by someone, but it works for me.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2716/lars k.
score: 1
sents: text: Some coffee shops provide spaghetti pasta for such a use.
text: You can also pour the dry ingredients slowly into the water stream, but you need steady hands and good timing so as not to end up with dry ingredients left once the cup is full of water.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2718/Rakanishu
score: 1
sents: text: Use your finger (if your coffee is not too hot and your finger is clean) as seen in 10 Years movie.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2272/kenorb
score: 0
sents: text: Maybe this is a variation on other answers, but one option is to make sure the cup is significantly bigger than the amount of coffee you are drinking to allow room to safely 'swirl' the coffee and ingredients together.
text: If there's a lid, you can get away with a little less room.
text: If it's one of the lids that has a closable sippy hole, you may even get away with actual shaking the coffee (though obviously ensure that the lid is held on tightly as you do)
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/2720/DA.
score: 0
sents: text: If you don't want to pull anything in the cup, there still is a (very simple) way.
text: Not very effective but it works.
text: Just stand upward, hold the cup in front of you and turn in your own axies.
text: The liquid in the cup will turn counterwise while the cup will not.
text: The "mixing-force" is very weak in this, so sugar which has not dissolved completely ain't affected by this very well.
text: But if you can wait a view minutes after inserting sugar, or if you only use milk, it works well.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/1388/jawo
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
It's questionable whether stirring coffee is even necessary in some circumstances, however, if you don't have a spoon to hand, you could use some other utensil such as a chopstick or straw. It's even possible to get special coffee stirrers, or if the coffee is not too hot you could in fact use your finger. You could also consider swirling the cup gently or pouring the mixture back and forth betweeo two cups. As a last resort, you may want to simply sip some of the mixture and then blow it back into the cup to mix it more.
The options include putting in the ingredients with one third of the water, swirling and then adding the rest of the water, using a straw, chopstick or spaghetti strand, pouring between two cups, drinking the coffee without sugar or creamer, adding milk and sugar first and then coffee, getting plastic stirrers from a fast food restaurant, sipping the coffee and squirting back from your mouth to blend, using a large cup to allow more swirling or using a finger if not too hot.