Coffee

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.

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.

Gross.

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 😅

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.

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.

I hate it, but I've never tried it. I feel like I represent most of the US.

Not in favor

If 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.

Coffee tastes so good, I can't think how a coffee substitute mixed in could make it better

I don't even know what chicory is

I’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

Not 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.

I 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.

i bought some and tried different ratios. i resolved that the less the better. in other words, in my opinion, chicory just worsens the coffee.

I’m for it

Naw, that's fo' po' folks!

I tried using chicory as a coffee alternative when I had to be caffeine free for awhile and was not a fan

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.

Haven't tried it. Not particularly interested in mixing my coffee with ... things.

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.

There'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.