Surrogates: Anything but the coffee

Surrogates: Anything but the coffee

What happens when coffee disappears?

This is not a thought experiment! It’s happened many times in history: War, blockades, tariffs, ideology, health panics, sanctions, supply shocks.

When coffee is not around, people still need something warm, comforting, and familiar. And throughout history, people have reached for coffee surrogates: roasted plants and grains engineered to look like coffee…but do they actually taste like coffee?

In this episode, Jonathan and James time-travel by taste testing a truly alarming number of coffee substitutes.

Spoiler: you will hear a lot of spitting!

Which leads to the bigger question: can anything actually replace coffee—or will we always come crawling back?

Please spread the word about A History of Coffee!

Follow us on Instagram - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and Jonathan (@coffeehistoryjm) - and tag us in an Instagram story.

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This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-leading coffee grinders for 100 years for your home and cafe.

Read Jonathan’s book, ‘Coffee: A Global History’

Support James’ work directly by buying him a coffee at Ko-fi.com/FilterStories

Read James’ article on the history of decaf technology in Standart

See Colin Smith’s amazing coffee museum at Smith’s Coffee in Hemel Hempstead, UK

Get nerdy about the intersection of AI and the occult on Karin’s Subtack, Mercurial Minutes

Do your own surrogate taste test!

Postum

Atomo

Orzo

Fig

Dandelion root

Dateseed

Acorn

Chickpea

Chicory Root

Camp Coffee

Check out Standart, the award-winning coffee magazine. Get a free magazine and a free bag of coffee by clicking here. How does Perfect Moose detect what kind of milk is in the pitcher? Click here to find out. What kind of racing car does the Gaggia Classic GT home espresso machine remind you of? Use discount code FS202610 to get 10% off. What does the Marco MilkPal look like to you? WALL-E? Something Steve Jobs would be proud of? Check it out here.

Episoder(76)

Mother Coffee: The history and heritage of Ethiopia's wild coffee forests

Mother Coffee: The history and heritage of Ethiopia's wild coffee forests

Most coffee is grown on vast plantations using machines, pesticides and fertilisers.    But in Ethiopia, coffee grows wild in humid forests surrounded by birds.    And that wild coffee matters more th...

9 Feb 48min

We Built This City…On Coffee: Hamburg and the making of Europe's coffee trade

We Built This City…On Coffee: Hamburg and the making of Europe's coffee trade

On a long walk through Hamburg, somewhere between the fish markets and giant cranes, you might stumble a giant bronze coffee bean looks like its crash landed from space.    But this giant coffee bean ...

5 Jan 50min

Introducing: Series Three of A History of Coffee

Introducing: Series Three of A History of Coffee

We’re back with more stories about the tiny psychoactive seed that changed the world and continues to shape our lives today. Is it possible to follow the story not just to Ethiopia, not just to a sin...

29 Des 20252min

Coffee Quality, Part 3: When the “quality” myth hits the farm

Coffee Quality, Part 3: When the “quality” myth hits the farm

For twenty years, the 2004 cupping form profoundly shaped the specialty coffee world.   But on the hillsides of coffee farms, some of the form’s byproducts have been disadvantaging producers.    In th...

8 Des 202530min

Coffee Quality, Part 2: How “quality” became a myth

Coffee Quality, Part 2: How “quality” became a myth

If you ask two specialty professionals what makes a high-quality coffee, you’ll likely get a surprisingly consistent answer: clean, sweet, juicy, bright. To an outsider, they would be forgiven for thi...

8 Des 202525min

Coffee Quality, Part 1: The birth of specialty coffee flavours

Coffee Quality, Part 1: The birth of specialty coffee flavours

For the longest time, coffees were dull and bitter. But then a small group of pioneers changed the world.    In this episode, we travel back to the 1960s and ’70s to meet the trailblazers who realised...

8 Des 202523min

How specialty coffee woke up to water’s role in flavour

How specialty coffee woke up to water’s role in flavour

For the longest time, the coffee community only cared about water’s impact ruining espresso machine boilers and kettles. But what about water’s impact on coffee flavour?   In this episode, I tell the ...

28 Jul 202525min

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