Caffeine-free café de olla: the clay-pot simmer works with roasted chicory, and the sugar is the part to get right
Café de olla is a method as much as a drink: a pot, cinnamon, unrefined cane sugar and a slow simmer. How to make a caffeine-free version with roasted chicory or other herbal grounds, and what to expect.
Café de olla means “pot coffee,” and the name tells you most of what you need. It is a drink built around a vessel and a slow simmer, with cinnamon and unrefined sugar doing the work that milk or syrup does elsewhere. If you miss spiced, sweet, warming coffee, this is a good one to rebuild without the coffee.
A pot and a simmer
According to Wikipedia’s entry on café de olla (opens in a new tab), the traditional drink is made with ground coffee, cinnamon and piloncillo in an earthenware pot, sometimes with orange peel, anise or cloves, and it is mostly drunk in colder and rural parts of Mexico. Origin stories, including ones tied to the Mexican Revolution, are repeated widely, but the sources we could verify don’t document them, so we’ll leave them as stories.
What we can say is that the technique is simple and doesn’t care what the grounds are. Water, spices and sugar simmer together, the grounds go in, and everything steeps in the pot. That’s why it suits a swap. If you’ve read our chicory brewing guide, you already know chicory wants a strong, patient brew. This is one.
What to swap in
We haven’t tested every herbal grounds on the market, so this is reasoning from how the method works, not test results.
- Roasted chicory is the simplest base. It’s naturally caffeine-free and roasts dark and bitter, which is what the sugar and cinnamon are there to balance.
- Chicory blends with roasted grains or carob will be sweeter and rounder, so you may want less sugar. Check the label first (see below).
- Instant herbal coffee dissolves, so it skips the steeping and strain steps. Treat it as a shortcut, not the same drink.
Caffeine-free café de olla, step by step
Makes two small mugs.
You’ll need:
- 2½ cups of water
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 to 3 tablespoons of chopped piloncillo, or dark brown sugar, to taste
- 2 heaping tablespoons of roasted chicory or other caffeine-free herbal grounds, medium to coarse grind
- Optional: a strip of orange peel, one clove or one star anise
Steps:
- Put the water, cinnamon, piloncillo and any optional spices in a small pot over medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves.
- When it reaches a gentle simmer, turn the heat to low and add the grounds. Stir once.
- Cover and keep it at a bare simmer for about 5 minutes. Don’t let it boil hard.
- Turn off the heat and let the pot stand, covered, for 5 minutes so the grounds settle.
- Pour through a fine strainer into mugs.
The timings are our starting point, not a tradition. Chicory is forgiving, but if the cup is thin, add grounds next time rather than simmering longer, the same advice as in our piece on why iced herbal coffee tastes watery.
If you like spiced drinks, our caffeine-free chai latte goes the milky route, and the cezve method is the other small-pot approach to try.
About the piloncillo
Panela (opens in a new tab), called piloncillo in Mexico, is cane juice boiled down and set in molds. Unlike American brown sugar, which is refined sugar with molasses added back, it keeps its molasses from the start, which gives it a deeper sweetness. Claims that it is meaningfully more nutritious than white sugar are mixed, and it is still sugar. We include it for flavor.
You can often find it in the international aisle or at Latin markets, usually as a hard cone you have to chop or grate. If you can’t, dark brown sugar plus a small spoonful of molasses is a reasonable stand-in, though a little less complex.
If it’s bitter, thin or muddy
- Bitter. The heat was probably too high or it simmered too long. Keep it at a bare simmer and stop at 5 minutes.
- Thin. Add another spoonful of grounds, not more time.
- Muddy. Use a finer strainer, or let it stand longer before pouring. Chicory tends to leave sediment, so leave the last bit in the pot.
- Too sweet. Cut the sugar in half. Blends with carob or dates need less.
Before you buy anything
Read the ingredient list on whatever grounds you choose. Plain roasted chicory is a root, but many herbal coffees include barley or rye, which contain gluten, and some include nuts. If you have celiac disease or a tree nut allergy, confirm on the packaging itself, since formulas and labels change.
If you’re still choosing a base, our roundup of caffeine-free coffee alternatives is the place to start. The result won’t be traditional café de olla, but it will be warm, sweet, cinnamon-forward and made slowly, which is most of what people miss.
Sources & further reading
- Café de olla (opens in a new tab) — Wikipedia
- Panela (opens in a new tab) — Wikipedia
Reader conversation (4)
We read every response. Selected reader notes below.
My abuela made this every cold morning and I miss it since I cut caffeine. I’m going to try it with chicory and a real piloncillo cone from the tienda down the road.
A cone is the right call. Chop it small so it dissolves before the grounds go in, and tell us how it compares to her version.
Tried it in a regular saucepan with dark brown sugar and a splash of molasses. Not authentic I’m sure, but lovely to hold on a 20-degree morning.
Can I use a French press instead of straining? I don’t own a fine strainer.
That should work. Simmer the spices and sugar in the pot, pour over the grounds in the press, let it stand and press. We haven’t tested it, so start with a small batch.
Halved the sugar because my chicory blend already has dates in it. Good tip in the troubleshooting section.
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