Coffee substitutes

What they are made of

Sourced

Chicory

The root of Cichorium intybus, a blue-flowered plant with a long tap root. The root is sliced, kiln-dried and roasted in the same way as coffee. Roasting drives off water and turns part of the root's inulin and bitter compounds into caramelised sugars, which is where the dark colour and the characteristic flavour come from.

Roasted cereals

Ukers lists wheat, rye, oats, buckwheat and bran as the usual grains, prepared either by roasting them directly, sometimes with sugar or molasses, or by baking a dough of the flour and then grinding and roasting it. Roasted barley is sold in the same role today.

Everything else

Older trade sources record roasted peas and beans, acorns, dried figs and lupins among the fillers used in Britain before adulteration law. Roasted dandelion root and carob are sold in the same role now. Each has its own flavour, and they are not interchangeable with one another.

Scarcity first, then taste

Sourced

Substitutes appear wherever coffee has been made expensive. Ukers describes eighteenth-century Prussia, where Frederick the Great restricted coffee roasting to licence holders and raised the price so far that poorer households fell back on barley, wheat, corn, chicory and dried-fig substitutes, which soon appeared in great numbers. He dates the use of roasted chicory with coffee to Holland in the second half of the eighteenth century, giving 1750 in one place and 1770 in another, and records its introduction to the United States in 1785.

What began as a shortage became a preference. By the time he was writing, large numbers of French, Italian, Dutch and German drinkers, and many in the American South, insisted on chicory in their coffee. He notes that in Europe it was regarded as an addition or modifier and not as an adulterant, and that many people had acquired the taste so thoroughly that they might not welcome coffee without it.

That tradition is alive. South Indian filter coffee is commonly a coffee and chicory blend, and coffee with chicory remains the style associated with New Orleans.

What they contain, and what they do not

Sourced

Chicory root contains no caffeine, and neither do cereals: caffeine is made by a small number of plants, and these are not among them. A drink made only from a substitute is caffeine-free. A coffee and chicory blend is not; it has less caffeine than the same weight of pure coffee, in proportion to how much of it is chicory.

Chicory root is a rich source of inulin, a dietary fibre. Whether a cup of the roasted drink delivers a meaningful amount is a different question that depends on the product and how it is prepared, and nothing here should be read as a health claim for it.

Cereal-based substitutes made from barley, wheat or rye contain gluten unless the product says otherwise. This is the practical point most often missed: a coffee substitute chosen to avoid caffeine can introduce an allergen that coffee never had.

What the label is allowed to call them

Sourced

The law keeps the names apart. The European directive on coffee and chicory extracts defines chicory as the root of Cichorium intybus, cleaned, dried and roasted, and reserves the names chicory extract, soluble chicory and instant chicory for products extracted from it with water alone. Dried chicory extract must be at least 95 per cent chicory-based dry matter, and the equivalent coffee names are reserved in the same way for extracts of roasted coffee beans. A product cannot borrow the other's name.

Rules on blends differ by country. India's food regulator, for instance, states that the coffee in a coffee and chicory mixture must be at least 51 per cent by mass and that the packet must declare the percentage of each, so the larger part is always coffee. It issued that reminder in 2021 because mixtures were being sold as pure coffee. The general principle is the same everywhere it is regulated: the mixture is lawful, and the label has to state it.

Brewing chicory and grain drinks

Widely documented

1. Start with less than you would use of coffee. Roasted chicory gives up far more to water than coffee does: an analysis quoted by Ukers found about three-quarters of pure roasted chicory to be water-soluble. A spoonful colours and flavours much more water than a spoonful of coffee, and too much is harsh.
2. Use any immersion or drip method. A French press, a cloth or paper filter, or a pan and a strainer all work. These are steeped, not extracted under pressure, and fine instant forms simply dissolve.
3. In a blend, change one part at a time. If a coffee and chicory blend tastes thin, add coffee. If it tastes woody and flat, reduce the chicory. Adjusting both at once makes it impossible to tell which did what.
4. Expect body and bitterness, not aroma. What substitutes supply is colour, weight and a roasted bitterness. The aromatic character of coffee comes from the roasted coffee seed and has no equivalent in a root or a grain.

Packets vary widely, and no quantity is standard. Start from the maker's and adjust.

Things they are confused with

CoffeeHQ explanation

• Decaffeinated coffee — Decaf is coffee with most of its caffeine removed, so it tastes of coffee. A substitute never contained caffeine and never tasted of coffee.
• Cascara — Cascara is the dried fruit of the coffee cherry. It comes from the coffee plant, contains caffeine and tastes like a fruit tea, so it is not a substitute in either sense.
• Adulterated coffee — The same ingredients, undeclared. Chicory in a bag labelled coffee and chicory is a blend; chicory in a bag labelled coffee is fraud.

What to do next

• South Indian filter coffee — The best-known living tradition built on a coffee and chicory blend, and how it is brewed.
• Decaf coffee — If the aim is less caffeine but the flavour of coffee, this is the nearer answer.
• Coffee fraud and adulteration — What happens when these ingredients are added without saying so, and how it is detected.
• Caffeine estimator — To see what replacing some of your cups with a caffeine-free drink does to the day's total.