Maya Ellington
Senior Editor
Maya Ellington is the senior editor of Coffee Alternatives. She spent eight years covering nutrition, primary care, and public health for a mid-Atlantic daily newspaper before moving fully into consumer editorial work.
She approaches every article the same way she approached a newsroom beat: cite your sources, don’t overclaim, and assume your reader is smart. Maya quit coffee in 2019 after a reflux scare, came back to decaf a year later, and is now a quiet evangelist for chicory — “if you can get over the idea that it’s supposed to be coffee, it’s really good.”
Based in Portland, Oregon. Writes standing up. Prefers single-origin chicory from Leroux, a Teeccino French Roast when she wants something fuller, and a ceremonial-grade matcha on slow Sundays.
Articles by Maya
Ersatz coffee: how war, blockade, and rationing invented most of today's coffee alternatives
Line up the caffeine-free roasts we’ve written about on this site — chicory, roasted barley, acorn, fig, chickpea, lupin, soybean, Postum — and a pattern sho...
What is chickpea coffee? The caffeine-free legume cup with a Middle-Eastern and Depression-era past
If you’ve followed this series through roasted soybean and lupin, you already know the plot: take a humble legume, roast it dark until it turns toasty and co...
What is soybean coffee? The caffeine-free roast from the macrobiotic tradition — and the wartime cup before it
Most of the caffeine-free cups I write about have one clean origin story. Soybean coffee has three, running in parallel: a 19th-century European health-food ...
What is acorn coffee? The forager's caffeine-free cup with a deep wartime history
Almost every caffeine-free drink I write about can be bought in a bag. Acorn coffee is one of the few you can gather off the ground. Long before “coffee alte...
What is fig coffee (Karlsbader / fig-seed coffee)? The caffeine-free roast Europe never gave up
Most of the caffeine-free drinks I write about come with a European grandmother somewhere in the story. Fig coffee comes with a whole spa town. Long before “...
What is mugicha (roasted barley tea)? The Japanese iced cup that isn't coffee at all
When I wrote about barley coffee — Italy’s caffè d’orzo — I mentioned in passing that the same grain shows up halfway around the world in a completely differ...
What is ramón seed coffee? The Maya nut cup that tastes like coffee — with no caffeine and no bean
Most of the caffeine-free drinks I write about arrive with either a marketing budget or a European grandmother. Ramón seed has neither. It comes out of the t...
What is Postum? The 130-year story of America's original caffeine-free coffee substitute
Long before mushroom lattes and adaptogen blends, before chicory had a moment and matcha had an Instagram account, America already had its coffee alternative...
What is lupin coffee? The caffeine-free legume brew you probably haven't heard of
The roasted, caffeine-free cup has a surprising amount of variety once you start looking. There’s the roasted root tier — chicory, dandelion, carob. There’s ...
What is barley coffee (orzo)? Italy's caffeine-free cup, and the one catch worth knowing
Most of the caffeine-free drinks I write about are New World plants or wellness-aisle newcomers — chicory, rooibos, the mushroom blends. Barley coffee is nei...
How much caffeine is in chocolate? The honest numbers, and the molecule that matters more
If you’ve cut back on coffee and then found yourself lying awake after an evening square of 85 percent dark, you’ve probably wondered the obvious thing: how ...
What is honeybush? Rooibos's lesser-known cousin, and what makes it worth knowing
A reader emailed last month asking what to make of the small bag of “honeybush” her aunt had brought back from Cape Town. The aunt’s pitch had been character...
Is rooibos really caffeine-free? The honest answer, and what else is worth knowing
A friend asked me at dinner last weekend whether rooibos really had zero caffeine, or whether that was one of those things people say that turns out to have ...
Does yerba mate have more caffeine than coffee? What the numbers actually say
A friend of mine started drinking yerba mate last fall on the recommendation of a trainer who told her it had “more caffeine than coffee but cleaner.” She la...
Adaptogens vs mushrooms: what's the difference, really?
A reader emailed me last month asking why every mushroom-coffee bag in her cupboard called itself “adaptogenic” while the bottle of ashwagandha in her medici...
What is carob coffee? The pod, the powder, and how it gets in your mug
The first time I tried carob coffee, I had no idea what I was tasting. The mug looked like coffee. The smell was warm and faintly cocoa-like but not quite ch...
Is decaf coffee bad for you? An honest read on the real concerns
A friend texted me last spring with a screenshot from an Instagram wellness account claiming that “decaf coffee is one of the worst things you can drink.” Sh...
Herbal coffee vs decaf: which is actually right for you?
People lump them together — “coffee without the caffeine” — and then get confused when they don’t taste the same, or when the decaf still gives them heartbur...
Does mushroom coffee help anxiety? What the research actually shows
A couple of years ago, the big claim in the coffee-adjacent internet was that a morning cup could make you productive. Now the pitch has flipped. Every third...
Is caffeine withdrawal in the DSM? Yes — here's what that means
When I was reporting on addiction medicine a decade ago, I was surprised to learn that caffeine withdrawal was a formal diagnostic entity. I had thought of c...