"Can you put creatine in coffee?" draws about 11,800 searches a month across its phrasings, and the answers that rank say two contradictory things: that heat "destroys" creatine, and that hot liquid is the best way to dissolve it. Both claims point at real chemistry. This page puts numbers on each one, sets out the separate question of whether caffeine interferes with creatine, and says what has never been measured. It reports studies and labels; it does not suggest a drink or an amount (how we work).
The short answer: hot coffee dissolves far more creatine than cold or room-temperature water. Heat does speed creatine's breakdown into creatinine, but on the published rate data a cup drunk within about 15 minutes loses somewhere between a fraction of a per cent and about 3%, depending on how hot it is. No study has measured creatine in coffee and then tested people on it.
| Temperature of the drink | Creatine lost in 5 min | 15 min | 30 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25°C (room temperature, measured) | <0.01% | 0.01% | 0.03% | 0.06% |
| 60°C (140°F) | 0.2% | 0.5% | 1.0% | 2.0% |
| 70°C (158°F) | 0.4% | 1.2% | 2.3% | 4.6% |
| 80°C (176°F) | 0.9% | 2.7% | 5.3% | 10.3% |
MuscleLedger's arithmetic, not a measurement: the 25°C rate at pH 5.5 from Jäger et al. 2011 (4% over three days), scaled to higher temperatures with the 20 kcal/mol activation energy Uzzan et al. 2009 measured for creatine in water-rich solutions at 4–35°C. Every row above 35°C is an extrapolation beyond the measured range, and coffee is slightly more acidic than pH 5.5, which would raise these figures somewhat. A cup also cools as it is drunk, which lowers them.
How heat and acidity break creatine down
In any water-based drink, creatine slowly closes into a ring and becomes creatinine, a waste product with no creatine activity — the same compound blood tests use as a kidney marker (explained on what creatinine on a blood test means). Two things set the speed.
Acidity. At 25°C over three days, creatine solutions lost about 4% at pH 5.5, 12% at pH 4.5 and 21% at pH 3.5, and were relatively stable between pH 6.5 and 7.5 (Jäger et al., Amino Acids 2011, PMID 21424716). Brewed coffee is mildly acidic, around pH 5; the measured pH of coffee, juice and cola sit side by side on what to mix creatine with.
Temperature. A University of Minnesota food-science group measured creatine breakdown in pH 4 buffer solutions at 4, 23 and 35°C. The reaction followed first-order kinetics and the Arrhenius relationship, with an activation energy of about 20 kcal/mol in the water-rich solutions (rising to about 23 kcal/mol in drier ones) (Uzzan et al., Drug Dev Ind Pharm 2009, PMID 19635041). In plain terms, every 10°C rise speeds the reaction roughly two to three times. That is the scaling behind the table above: at 80°C the conversion runs about 190 times faster than at room temperature, which turns a loss measured over days into one measurable over an hour.
Uzzan and colleagues had earlier heat-treated milk drinks enriched with creatine at 72 to 138°C, as in commercial pasteurisation, and reported that creatine showed "only limited stability at either processing or storage", so a manufacturer would need to add more than 25% extra to end up at the labelled amount (Uzzan et al., J Food Sci 2007, PMID 17995798). That is industrial heating and months of storage, not a cup of coffee, but it shows heat losses are real enough for food makers to plan around.
The one study that put creatine in coffee
A Brazilian pharmacy group exposed commercial creatine to heat (60 to 200°C), UV light, acid and alkali, and to three drinks — coffee, orange juice and an energy drink — and analysed the products by infrared spectroscopy and high-resolution mass spectrometry. Temperature was the factor with the largest effect on the spectra; each drink gave its own pattern of breakdown products; and acidic conditions produced no significant breakdown products while alkaline ones did (Saiki et al., Food Res Int 2025, doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2025.117472). The published abstract gives no percentage of creatine lost in coffee, so the study confirms that coffee changes creatine but not by how much. We could open the abstract only.
The "145°F" claim
A widely shared claim says creatine breaks down "around 145°F" (63°C). We found no study that sets a breakdown threshold at that temperature, and the chemistry has none: the conversion is a continuous rate that rises with heat, present at room temperature and faster at every step up. The nearest published figure is for dry powder: stored at 60°C (140°F), creatine showed its first trace of creatinine only after 44 months (the dry-storage data is on does creatine expire). For context on coffee temperatures, the WHO cancer agency defines "very hot" drinks as those consumed above 65°C (IARC press release 244, 2016).
How much dissolves in a mug
Creatine monohydrate is not very soluble, and its solubility climbs with temperature: about 6 g per litre at 4°C, 14 g at 20°C, 34 g at 50°C and 45 g at 60°C (Jäger et al. 2011). Applied to a standard 240 mL (8 fl oz) mug:
| Drink | Dissolves in 240 mL | A 5 g scoop |
|---|---|---|
| Iced coffee, about 4°C | ≈ 1.4 g | most of it stays as sediment |
| Coffee left to reach room temperature | ≈ 3.4 g | about a third does not dissolve |
| Hot coffee, about 60°C | ≈ 10.8 g | dissolves fully |
So the property that worries people about hot coffee, heat, is also the one that makes it the easiest everyday drink to dissolve creatine in. Undissolved creatine is not lost — it is swallowed as sediment or left in the cup — and no trial has compared the two for muscle uptake. Particle size changes how fast creatine dissolves, not how much (micronized creatine explained).
The caffeine question
Separate from chemistry, there is a long-running question whether caffeine blunts what creatine does. In brief:
- Against: in 1996, nine men loading creatine for six days gained 10 to 23% in dynamic torque — and gained nothing when 5 mg/kg of caffeine a day was added, although muscle phosphocreatine rose equally in both conditions (Vandenberghe et al., J Appl Physiol 1996, PMID 8929583).
- The coffee trial: in 2016, 54 active men took five days of creatine alone, creatine with 300 mg of caffeine anhydrous, creatine with coffee supplying 303 mg of caffeine, or placebo. Strength and sprint measures improved without any difference by treatment (Trexler et al., J Strength Cond Res 2016, PMID 26439785). This is the only trial we found that used coffee itself; it measured performance, not creatine left in the cup.
Later trials that gave caffeine after loading found it helped sprinting, and some found no interaction at all; the full table, the proposed mechanism and the small trials on both sides are on creatine and caffeine.
What creatine labels say about coffee
We searched the US government's supplement label register (the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database) on 2026-10-14. 772 on-market labels list creatine. Of those, 218 matched a search for "coffee", and we read every one:
| What the 218 labels say about coffee | Labels |
|---|---|
| Directions that mention coffee or any hot or warm drink | 0 |
| Compare a serving's caffeine with cups of coffee | 99 |
| Warn against other caffeine sources, naming coffee | 78 |
| List a coffee ingredient (beans, extract) | 24 |
Most of these are pre-workouts that already contain caffeine, which is why the coffee mentions are warnings rather than serving suggestions; a label can fall into more than one row. No label we read either recommends or warns against stirring creatine into a hot drink. Label directions in general — where they put creatine relative to training, food and liquid — are counted on how labels and the ISSN say to take creatine.
What this page cannot tell you
- No study measured creatine in a real cup of coffee over time. The loss figures above are arithmetic on two published constants, extrapolated well past the 35°C they were measured at.
- The one coffee study published spectra and breakdown products, not a percentage, and we read only its abstract.
- No trial has compared creatine taken in hot coffee with creatine taken in water on muscle creatine or performance.
- Nothing here is a suggestion to add creatine to coffee or not. Anyone with a kidney condition, high blood pressure or a caffeine sensitivity should take the question to a clinician; creatine's reported side effects are collected on creatine side effects.
Sources
- Jäger R, Purpura M, Shao A, Inoue T, Kreider RB. Analysis of the efficacy, safety, and regulatory status of novel forms of creatine. Amino Acids 2011;40(5):1369–83 — PMID 21424716 · doi:10.1007/s00726-011-0874-6 (solubility and solution-stability data)
- Uzzan M, Nechrebeki J, Zhou P, Labuza TP. Effect of water activity and temperature on the stability of creatine during storage. Drug Dev Ind Pharm 2009;35(8):1003–8 — PMID 19635041 · doi:10.1080/03639040902755197 (activation energy, read 2026-10-14)
- Uzzan M, Nechrebeki J, Labuza TP. Thermal and storage stability of nutraceuticals in a milk beverage dietary supplement. J Food Sci 2007;72(3):E109–14 — PMID 17995798
- Saiki PY, Sales GM, de Oliveira AN, Catharino RR. Multi-analytical characterization of creatine degradation for dietary supplement safety assessment. Food Res Int 2025;221:117472 — doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2025.117472 (abstract read 2026-10-14)
- Vandenberghe K, Gillis N, Van Leemputte M, et al. Caffeine counteracts the ergogenic action of muscle creatine loading. J Appl Physiol 1996;80(2):452–7 — PMID 8929583
- Trexler ET, Smith-Ryan AE, Roelofs EJ, et al. Effects of coffee and caffeine anhydrous intake during creatine loading. J Strength Cond Res 2016;30(5):1438–46 — PMID 26439785
- International Agency for Research on Cancer. IARC Monographs evaluate drinking coffee, maté, and very hot beverages. Press release 244, 15 June 2016 — iarc.who.int
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Dietary Supplement Label Database — API v9, on-market labels listing creatine (772) and the 218 matching "coffee", each read on 2026-10-14 — dsld.od.nih.gov