I’ll have a medium coffee with cream, sugar, and salt.

Wait, what? You read that right: Putting salt in your coffee is now a thing. We know it sounds totally strange, but adding salt to your coffee might actually make it better. Here’s why.

Putting salt into coffee, whether it’s adding it to the grounds before brewing or throwing it into a cup of already brewed stuff, will take the bitter edge off of an over-brewed pot of joe. While one should, of course, always aspire to the perfect grounds-to-water ratio to begin with, sometimes it’s just too late to go back. Plus, think of all the times you find yourself at an establishment with terrible coffee. That’s where the salt trick really comes in handy.

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Now, we aren’t suggesting you throw spoonfuls of sodium into your next bitter cup of coffee. But simply adding a pinch, whether to cup or grounds, will take the edge off. Anything more than a pinch and you’ll be salivating at the saltiness of your now-worse coffee. But when added properly, a pinch of salt can provide an overall smoother cup of caffeine and, best of all, is generally available wherever you may be ordering.

We all have those days where we brew a morning cup at home and realize we’re out of milk and sugar. Thankfully now, we have a quick fix to the problem. While we prefer the more traditional way of preparing coffee, knowing there’s a backup plan out there makes us breathe a caffeine-induced sigh of relief.