More than one year ago, I decided that coffee (caffeine in general) wasn’t making me any good. I felt hostage to coffee: if I didn’t drink it every morning, I’d get a terrible headache, forcing me to drink it to avoid being in pain. It also made me feel more anxious during the day. Why was I doing this to myself?

When I had to leave early and didn’t have time for drinking coffee, I would seek out for coffee right away. And it had to be before 11am to avoid messing up with my sleep. Except that I don’t like the idea of paying almost 10 bucks for a coffee drink.

What I liked about drinking coffee in the morning was that it was a ritual. I’d drink in the morning while journaling, reading, or studying, a cue for focus and instropection.

I never really liked coffee that much – it was an acquired taste. It was a matter of replacing the drink and keeping the ritual. That’s how I embarked on a caffeine-free journey.

Caffeine-free drinks experiments

My husband was the first one who stopped drinking coffee to help with his sleep. I joined him a few months after, trying a few things along the way. Eventually, I got so sensitive to caffeine that even drinking decaf regular coffee would keep me awake at night >.<

The most obvious first experiment was loose leaf/sachet teas. I tried lots of them but didn’t click for me. I had to try something else.

I then found out the caffeine-free powder products from Blume, a Canadian brand. I have tried almost all of their latte powder (my favourites are the Blue Lavender and Beetroot blends). I highly recommend trying them out! If you try them, buy directly from their website instead of Amazon to support Canadian businesses :)

Eventually, my husband bought a bag of Chicory Root. I tried once and it was horrible. Continued drinking Blume until I decided I wanted to spend less with this daily part of my life. For comparison, I now buy the roasted Chicory root in bulk at my local refillery and it costs around 22 bucks for ~420g. It lasts 2-3 months, depending on how many servings we drink per day.

I decided to try Chicory Coffee again. And I finally decided to research how to acquire the taste for it. I was committed to ditching caffeine for once and all.

How I make Chicory Coffee

We have a small espresso machine with a manual milk frother. I always had coffee with frothed milk, so I thought it would be nice to try that with Chicory Root coffee.

And voila! I’ve been experimenting with different variations and it’s been part of my morning ritual.

Here’s how I do it:

I brew a concentrated batch of chicory root tea for the week:

  • for a glass of hot water, I add 3-4 tablespoons of chicory root
  • drain
  • store the chicory coffee in a glass on the fridge

When I am ready to drink, I pour a bit of the concentrated coffee in a cup, sweeten it to taste, froth my soy or oat milk and add a dash of cinnamon on top.

I realized it was may more efficient to brew a batch like this instead of brewing it every day. I learned this after visiting Italy this Summer, where I found a few coffee shops offereing Chicory Cappucino. How cool is that?!

The best part of drinking chicory root, and other coffee alternatives, is that I can drink them all day, anytime of the day without messing up with my sleep. And spending less ;)

Next, I want to explore dandellion coffee which is suposed to be similar to chicory. I have seen some local stores selling instant dandellion coffee but similar to coffee, buying the roasted version and brewing it yourself must certainly taste better.

If you’ve been thinking of expanding your drink menu outside of coffee, I hope you got some inspiration to try some new things. Have fun!