Low-carbohydrate dieters rejoice: Plain brewed coffee or espresso are remarkably low-carb coffee drinks! (So, surprisingly, are sweetly flavored coffee beans—but more on that later!) A generous 12-ounce serving of plain brewed coffee contains just 1 carbohydrate gram; so does a single espresso. Enrich that coffee or espresso with a drizzle of unsweetened cream or a dollop of foam from steamed milk and you add virtually no carbohydrates.

Whole milk, nonfat milk, low-fat milk, or soymilk, being higher in carbohydrates that fat-rich cream, up the coffee carb count. A 12-ounce nonfat cappuccino, for example, contains 11 carb grams, 1g more than the same drink made with whole milk; a nonfat caffè latte of the same size has 18 carbohydrate grams, and 16 grams when made with whole milk.

The carbohydrates go up even higher when you add sweet flavorings or enrichments to your coffee drinks. For example, a 12-ounce mocha latte, made with whole milk and chocolate syrup, contains 34 carb grams, 16 grams more than a drink without that syrup.

Now back to flavored coffee beans, made by infusing roasted coffee beans with concentrated flavor extracts. Whether you buy chocolate raspberry cream coffee beans or hazelnut coffee beans, French vanilla coffee beans or macadamia nut coffee beans, Viennese cinnamon coffee beans or white chocolate coffee beans, those flavorings add hardly any extra carbohydrates to those already present in the coffee, regardless of the flavor combination. A 12-ounce cup of flavored coffee, served black, might contain at most 2 carbohydrate grams, only 1 gram more than an unflavored cup of black coffee and well within the guidelines of low-carbohydrate diets. So feel free to go ahead and brew up some flavored beans and enjoy a very low-carbohydrate coffee start to your day or a low-carbohydrate dessert after dinner—just so long as you don’t add any sugar or too much milk to your cup!