Hard to believe. But European coffee history would hardly have been possible without its own substitute products. In fact, coffee surrogates are largely responsible for coffee becoming popular and an everyday beverage.
What were coffee surrogates? The list is endless, reads adventurously, and sometimes bone-dry. Though "bone-dry" would be too kind a description for one or another surrogate. These are products that completely or partially replaced, substitute, or extend coffee. Here is an excerpt from a list by Mark Pendergrast from Coffee – How a Bean Changed the World: "Almonds, arrowroot, asparagus seeds and stalks, baked horse liver, barberry, barley, beechnuts, beetroot, boxwood seeds, fern, bran, bread crusts, brewery waste, brick dust, burnt rags, burdock, carob, carrot, chickpea, chicory, chrysanthemum seeds, coal ash, cocoa shells, comfrey roots, cranberries, currants, dahlia tubers, dandelion roots, date seeds, earth, dog biscuits, elderberries, <…> sand, sassafras, sawdust <…>." And so on. This list goes on for half a page in Pendergrast. And we haven't even discussed how these surrogates were colored or made to resemble coffee. But that's another chapter and deals with lead, arsenic, and dyes, but has little to do with the initial surrogates that helped coffee on its extraordinary career.
Historical Perspective
Let's set the scene. While coffee became strongly rooted in the Islamic world at the latest with the unification of the Arab world by the Ottoman Empire (1520), in Europe we were still primarily looking into beer and wine mugs. It wasn't until 125 years later that the first coffee house opened in Venice. Others followed in Oxford (1650), Marseille (1659), Bremen (1673), and Vienna (1685).
At that time, coffee was a luxury item, hardly affordable for the common citizen. It was consumed in wealthy circles. These served as role models for the people. The Federers and Clooneys of the 17th century were, for example, Süleiman Aga. This Turkish envoy invited guests to a coffee ceremony at the court of Louis XIV, delighting them. Soon after, coffee became the noble trend product at European royal courts, essentially the Nespresso of today. The common people oriented themselves toward the aristocratic celebrities of that time. They heard about the new drink from the South and yearned to try it. Initially, however, this pleasure was only granted to a few. Coffee was hardly affordable. The more it was coveted. What had to happen, happened. On the one hand, ingenious minds invented substitute products, and on the other hand, true myths about the new product soon developed. From an aphrodisiac to a medicine for expanding the mind, all sorts of things were attributed to coffee. Incidentally, not only by proponents. The opponents certainly also paved the way for success. Some feared that their beverage monopolies (beer, wine) were in danger, while others saw the wind of free spirit blowing in the emerging coffeehouse culture and feared such an awakening bourgeoisie. Rulers reacted differently from country to country. With prohibitions, restrictions, but also openness to the new drink – also depending on whether they themselves maintained colonies that produced the new stimulant.
Where prohibitions predominated (e.g., Switzerland and Germany), alternatives were sought all the more creatively. And now we come to the surrogates. Because people wanted to drink the new wonder drink. If necessary, diluted or as close an alternative as possible. Chicory, or more precisely, its bitter-tasting root, won the race here. With the addition of sugar beets and fats, cut and roasted, it was industrially produced on a larger scale from 1769.
An excursion into brand history would be interesting here, but there is hardly any space for it at this point. In any case, chicory coffee became known as "Prussian coffee" under slogans such as "Healthy and rich without you" and "Germans drink German coffee and stay healthy." Over time, it found its way into people's accustomed meal routines and replaced beer soup as a morning meal. This was only possible because, unlike real coffee, the surrogate was affordable for the common people.
Coffee substitutes become a habit
The taste of substitute coffee thus established itself in all households. When the production of real coffee took on ever larger proportions, coffee prices also moved into more affordable depths. And over time, the amount of real coffee in the surrogate mixtures also increased.
Today, we can still consciously opt for a surrogate. Many roasters keep special blends ready for customers. In coffee blends described as such, however, the surrogates should have disappeared. They usually have. There are exceptions to the rule. And of course, not everything that glitters is gold, or where "Coronation," "Premium," or "Specialty" is written. But more on that another time.
