Lupin coffee from Helen. Our local coffee alternative
Coffee alternatives have existed for centuries. Today, lupin coffee is becoming increasingly common. Those looking for a caffeine-free, coffee-like drink will likely find what they need in lupins. In the future, coffee alternatives will become increasingly important as coffee is threatened by climate change. We visited the farm of sweet lupin producer Helen Wegmüller and launched our own lupin coffee with her.
Lupin coffee is a brewed drink made from roasted, ground lupins infused with hot water. In addition to the now widespread lupin coffee, there are other coffee substitutes made from chicory, grains, and acorns.
But isn't calling it "coffee" misleading? And perhaps does it create expectations that the drink cannot fulfill? At the very least, lupin coffee won't achieve an 80-point score on a scoresheet. But perhaps it doesn't have to: perhaps it's enough to simply be a caffeine-free alternative.
Helen - Our Lupin Coffee
We named our interpretation of a lupin coffee after the producer, Helen. We roast the coffee in a Rational commercial oven for six minutes at an air temperature of 250°C.
Helen's lupins of the Jowisz variety, with our light and short roast, produce a very sweet drink. We taste notes of licorice and fresh, dark bread. We produce the lupin coffee in small batches in our kitchen and grind it on a grinder reserved exclusively for lupins.
A Brief History of Coffee-like Beverages
Whenever something was difficult or expensive to obtain, alternatives were sought. First during Napoleon's Continental Blockade between 1806 and 1812, but also in the post-war period, real coffee was a scarce commodity.
A pound of coffee cost as much as 50kg of potatoes.
However, the desire for a coffee-like taste did not diminish: alternatives were sought, and various substitute products from grains and roots were roasted and ground to obtain a coffee-like drink that could be infused and drunk like coffee.
It is unclear when coffee began to be made from sweet lupins. The first mention dates back to 1897, when a lupin drink was named "Altreier Kaffee" after the town in Tyrol. Today, lupin coffee is increasingly found, as are other products made from lupins such as lupin flour or in pasta form.
It is clear that climate change will have an impact on coffee. The exact local effects to be expected are unpredictable, but weather patterns will shift and predictability will decrease. But not only the coffee plant itself is vulnerable, but also the complex value chain behind it.
Helen Wegmüller explains why and how she cultivates lupins.
Typically, coffee passes through many hands and travels thousands of kilometers before it can be roasted by us. Coffee alternatives score points here with their robustness and the simpler, greatly shortened value chain.
A Brief History of Lupins
Lupins are allergens and must be declared on menus. Nevertheless, lupins are increasingly found on menus and in the product ranges of roasters.
But what are lupins?
Lupins belong to the legume family, like soybeans, chickpeas, beans, and peas. Thus, they serve as a plant-based protein source and are versatile. The product list ranges from lupin flour to hummus, from lupin sausages to seasoning sauce for yogurt.
Sweet lupins are not only culinarily versatile, they are also good for soil health:
they can fix up to 100kg of nitrogen, making them an ideal plant for crop rotation with cereals and corn.
Alongside all the advantages, there is one risk. Lupins produce more alkaloids when stressed by drought, heat, moisture, or pests. These lead to increased bitterness and can be harmful to humans in too high concentrations. Therefore, in Germany, threshold values must be adhered to (not yet in Switzerland).
This risk is problematic for farmers; the market price for food is much higher than for feed (for which lupins are also suitable). However, if the threshold values are not met, farmers may be left with their product. Therefore, there is a decline in the market (Luve, a well-known brand, is insolvent) and many farmers are looking for alternatives.
As with coffee, there are different varieties of lupins. Some have higher yields, others have less bitterness. The white lupin variety "Frieda" in particular was heavily pushed by DSV-Saaten, as lupin pioneer Linda from Biolandhof Kelly told us in an interview.
Is Lupin Coffee a Sustainable Option as a Coffee Substitute?
Even though we do not yet have precise data for Helen's cultivation, we can make an initial estimate of emissions based on a Carbon Cloud dataset. There, Swiss lupins are listed with a CO₂ footprint of 0.79 kg CO2e per kg of lupins. We add the roasting loss, which is about 15%, and the emissions caused by our roasting plant and transport.
Helen delivered the lupins we received from her while running other errands. The distance from the farm to the roastery is 73 km, and we allocate 50% of the resulting emissions to the lupins.
According to this simplified calculation, 1.46 kg CO2e /kg of lupin coffee results. Thus, the emissions are significantly lower than those of our Santa Rita coffees at 2.96 kg CO2e /kg. It becomes even clearer if we include the average value of a roasted, conventionally produced roasted coffee from Brazil.
Preparation of Lupin Coffee
As we approached creating the recipes, we first had to forget everything we had learned about coffee so far. Tamping, for example, the compression of ground coffee in the portafilter, becomes superfluous. We noticed in various extractions that tamping, if at all, had a marginal impact on flow times.
The reason is that lupin coffee swells very strongly and expands in the portafilter. This creates a high resistance in the "lupin cake," through which the water then forces its way.
This brings us to the extraction times, which - for a classic espresso extraction - are beyond the norm. The first extractions of 60 seconds were, however, not only drinkable but very balanced. We noticed: the longer the brew, the sweeter the drink. We would have expected it to become increasingly bitter, but: that would be thinking like coffee.
In the lupin coffee mindset, we see that longer extractions with lighter roasted sweet lupins can emphasize sweetness.
We have tried various recipes. These are our three favorites:
Filter coffee with lupins / French Press
- we recommend the French Press, or plunger pot
- we recommend 10g of sweet lupin coffee per 100ml of water
- the water should be used just after boiling to achieve high extraction
- we pour approx. 50ml of water over the lupins, stir so that all the coffee is well wetted, and then fill to the desired amount of water
- after three minutes, we stir vigorously again and press the plunger down at 3:30 minutes
Espresso with lupins
- we like the beverage ratio 1:2.6 best - time is negligible
- we fill 15g of lupin coffee into a double portafilter
- we extract 40g of beverage into the cup as a double espresso, or 20g per cup if you are using two cups
- depending on your machine's pump pressure, you can do this in a shorter or longer time, approx. 30 seconds could be a reference
- longer extraction times, combined with the light roast, have no negative impact on the taste
Long coffee with lupins
- we like the beverage ratio 1:7 or 1:8 best
- we use 12g of lupin coffee in a double portafilter
- we extract a total of 90g into a cup
