If I’m going to sweeten my tea, I will use honey. If it’s crystallized, I will pour some of the hot water into the honey jar to dissolve it, and then pour that into the tea cup.
I have been told that the benefits of honey are that local raw honey serves as an immunotherapy for the pollens of local plants to those who have allergies. The theory is similar to the allergy shots (or sublingual serums available nowadays) to help the body gradually build a tolerance. I have heard that heat destroys these benefits, though.
I am grossed-out at the thought of honey in coffee. Those two flavors seem incompatible. Starbucks had a honey-something-or-other latte a couple years ago, and it tasted yucky.
I use a blend of raw organic cane sugar and turbinado sugar in my coffee. There’s something about the molasses in the turbinado that works with the coffee flavor, and I find that I can use less sugar than if I’m using the cane sugar only. I also tried incorporating cinnamon to reduce the amount of sugar; but since cinnamon doesn’t dissolve, it didn’t work well. Another suggestion has been to use a spoonful of coconut oil in the coffee – but that just separates and floats on top, as you’d expect oil to do.
The flavored creamers are full of corn syrup and/or artificial sweeteners and other artificial ingredients. I try to eat as naturally as I can, so I use Farmland Fat-Free ‘Half-and-Half’ that doesn’t have any added sweeteners or flavors (most of the other brands have corn syrup and other artificial nonsense).