What's your opinion about adding chicory to coffee?
What's your opinion about adding chicory to coffee?
What's your opinion about adding chicory to coffee? I know there's a few places, like Café du Monde in New Orleans that offers coffee with chicory. It's also sold as a mix in grocery stores in France.
I started trying it recently by adding a small teaspoon to my coffee in my French press and it gives a really smooth brew.
What do you think? Are you a purist? Have you tried it? What's your opinion?
After having it in New Orleans, I find a little in the brew (10-15% of total weight of grounds) takes me back to that very lovely trip. Additionally I read that chicory is good for those with diabetes… and then stumbled upon something that blew my mind which is just how many different names and varieties exist that humans cultivate and eat regularly. Wild endive, radicchio, frisée, puntarelle, Belgian endive, and escarole are just the most popular. It’s also a prebiotic as I’ve been told.
I understand there’s social stigma around chicory in coffee because many considered it something only poor people used to stretch their coffee. I went into it blind of any history or context and found it enjoyable, so I’ve involved it in my coffee routines frequently. But everyone’s tastes are their own.
I do not understand it as a pure coffee replacement. A 100% chicory brew was not enjoyable for me personally.
14What a fun city. Having lived in the South most of my life, I somehow associated it as not a great place to visit. I was so wrong. Yes, it’s a party city, but it’s so, so much more. The food is top notch, the gardens are beautiful, and where else in the south can you ride a cable car, as regular public transportation!
As for the coffee, yea the chicory was different, but it tasted good, added a bit of a root bear kind of taste, mildly pleasant. I wouldn’t drink it every day, I don’t like sweet coffee, but occasionally a nice treat. Coincidentally, I live in Chapel Hill now and the place up the street sells chicory coffee, both brewed and cold brew. It’s nice when, like you, I want to reminisce about that beautiful trip.
6Cable cars are pulled by a cable like in San Francisco. New Orleans' street Cars are powered by overhead electrical wires.
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It was used as a cheap replacement/filler in coffee during the German occupation in WW2 where i live. I think it's quite gross and tastes bad. Saying that the coffee must be from an old WW2 stock is often used as a reference/joke here when you have really bad tasting coffee.
12Interesting. Where are you from?
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Gross.
12Right? What am I, a 19th century tenant farmer? I might not be rich but I can still afford actual coffee.
8LoL that's alright.
To each their own.
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I quite like chicory in my coffee, but I find it also upsets my stomach a bit
Otherwise, I enjoy it in my instant coffee!
I also pretty much only drink instant coffee so don't take my opinion too seriously 😅
6Funny. Usually chicory is used as an alternative to coffee because it is softer on the stomach.
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Chicory in coffee? Probably not. Brewed chicory though? Not bad but it’s just another drink imo. Blue Bottle also does a chicory drink that’s pretty good.
5I do drink it by itself in the afternoon. Coffee will keep me awake and anxious all night otherwise.
1Blue bottle does the NOLA style, or New Orleans and it's delicious, one of my favorite treats.
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I enjoy it when it's available, as a treat. It would never be a daily brew though. I also really enjoy a nice New Mexican Piñon coffee which highlights chocolate notes in the coffee. I am ready for a break from it each time I finish a bag though.
4If I'm making New Orleans style Cafe au lait then sure. If I am trying to make some bad beans more drinkable then sure. But if I have some really good single origin light roast beans that are excellent on their own then no way.
3Agree. I wouldn't ruin an otherwise very good coffee either.
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Not in favor
3I have some and use it occasionally. I think I did 50/50 by weight and that wasn't my favorite, taste wise, but I was going for fiber content primarily. I might have to try 15% and see how that goes, given what some people have said.
2Coffee tastes so good, I can't think how a coffee substitute mixed in could make it better
2Not a good substitute, but an okay addition. Makes boring coffees taste better. I drink mostly decaf, and sometimes it is difficult to find reliably good decaf for normal pricing, and if I'm using Starbucks or Tim Hortons decaf, it helps the flavor.
2I’m really like it. I usually have A chicory- coffee blend as one of my choices, from a roaster in Louisiana. Like others here, it really brings back memories of a great trip.
I recently picked up a bag of chicory so I can experiment with my other coffee choices
2I don't even know what chicory is
2It's a plant that has been used as a coffee substitute because it has a very similar flavor profile and makes a dark brown drink when brewed.
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I’m for it
2i bought some and tried different ratios. i resolved that the less the better. in other words, in my opinion, chicory just worsens the coffee.
2That fair.
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If you ever get instant or flavoured coffee it will 99% of the time have chicory as an ingredient.
I've had it in coffee before, and while I wouldn't intentionally add any to my brewed coffee, it isn't the horrifying thing some may say.
1Haven't tried it. Not particularly interested in mixing my coffee with ... things.
1Doesn't coffee itself come under the category of things? Like how weird is it to pick berries and first let them rot before burning what's left and then grinding that up to pour water on and drink it? 😁
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There used (1970s maybe) to be a brand called Camp in the UK which I think was a blend of coffee and chicory as a liquid that you added hot water to. Awful stuff as I remember it. It may still be sold there for all I know.
1So it's like coffee concentrate. The chicory was probably to remove some bitterness.
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Naw, that's fo' po' folks!
1So are a lot of famous dishes and drinks around the world. Doesn't mean they're not good.
3You're right, and I think there might be additional health benefits from adding it in, too!
I confess my comment wasn't my real opinion, but I'm sure that's what my grandmother would have said. She was always very concerned with appearances.
My actual answer: I have spent time in Dixie and drank a fair bit of chicory coffee. At that time I also smoked like a chimney so I wonder now how much I was able to smell and taste much of anything back then. I liked it fine but it was never my favorite go-to.
Since I quit smoking and live a generally more healthy life I find I have become a bit of a purist. I like my coffee to be coffee, as there is so much variety just within coffee that adding in other things seems to complicate the issue beyond what I'm willing to deal with.
But again, no shade at anyone who likes it.
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I tried using chicory as a coffee alternative when I had to be caffeine free for awhile and was not a fan
1There's only one thing I add to my coffee: hot water to the fresh grounds when I brew it. I want to taste the coffee, the roast, the sweetness, the acidity, and all the different elements from where it was cultivated, how it was cultivated, and how it was processed. Adding sugar, cream, chicory, or anything else covers up what the coffee brings. Looking back, when I was adding stuff to coffee, I was covering up my poorly understood brew methods.
Now, if if I was inclined to add chicory, it would be to a fairly flat neutral medium-dark to dark roast that doesn't have much going on. That's so that I could get a clear taste what the chicory is bringing. But I have as much interest in chicory as I have in other flavored coffees. Which is when I'm feeling morbidly curious.
Now, if you want to add it, you do you. But there is a lot of depth to coffee when you start digging into using good beans with different brew methods, brew recipes, along with that search for the "perfect cup" of coffee.
If you are interested in getting a good cup out of french press, James Hoffmann has a good recipe. It's basically a modified cupping recipe.
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