Priya Ramachandran
Recipe Editor
Priya Ramachandran is Coffee Alternatives’ recipe editor. A trained pastry chef, she developed recipes for a West Coast bakery group for six years before going independent.
Her approach: no recipe goes live until she’s made it at least five times, across at least two water types. “Soft Portland water and hard Austin water are basically different drinks.”
She is skeptical of anything that claims to “taste just like coffee” (“taste like and taste as well as are different promises”) and is obsessed with how roasted chicory, carob, barley, and cacao can actually taste great in a cup when you stop trying to fake coffee and start letting them be themselves.
Obligatory recipe opinion: always pre-bloom cocoa powder with a tablespoon of boiling water before adding to a latte. Saves you from a gritty cup.
Articles by Priya
The chicory swap's fourth physics: what a curry's browning stage changes, and the curry that already uses coffee
Owen Baptiste, in Port of Spain, read the savoury-cooking piece and noticed the gap in it immediately. That piece worked out three physics – chili stays most...
What to use instead of coffee in chili, rubs and mole: the savoury side of the espresso-powder swap
Hal Brennan, in Portland, Maine, left a comment on the espresso-powder baking piece that we couldn’t answer honestly in the reply box. Most of his espresso p...
What to use instead of espresso powder: baking with roasted chicory and herbal coffee
Every recipe on this site so far has been a drink or something you eat with a spoon. Lattes, chai, horchata, mochas, tiramisu, affogato, granita. All of them...
Caffeine-free affogato: the two-minute dessert, and the herbal-coffee sauce it turns into
A few weeks ago I wrote up caffeine-free tiramisu, which is the hard one — a dessert where the espresso is load-bearing, where you have to think about egg sa...
Caffeine-free tiramisu: the espresso-soaked dessert, rebuilt with chicory and herbal coffee
Tiramisu is the dessert I get asked about most, and it’s the one I resisted writing up the longest. Every other classic has an easy caffeine-free route — you...
Caffeine-free coffee granita and popsicles: frozen herbal-coffee treats for a heat wave
Every July I stop wanting to drink my coffee alternative and start wanting to eat it. When the afternoon hits triple digits, even a tall glass of iced chicor...
Why your iced herbal coffee tastes watery — and how to fix the strength
Every summer I get some version of the same disappointed message: “I switched to iced chicory coffee and it just tastes like brown water.” It’s one of the mo...
Caffeine-free blended frappés: frozen coffee-shop drinks without the coffee
Of all the drinks people miss when they quit caffeine, the blended frozen one comes up the most in July. Not the hot cup, not even the plain iced coffee — th...
Caffeine-free horchata coffee: the cinnamon-rice cooler as a summer coffee swap
Every July I get the same message from readers who’ve just quit caffeine: what do I drink at 3pm when everyone else is getting an iced coffee? And every July...
Caffeine-free chai latte: the spiced cup without the black tea
Chai is the drink I get asked about most by people who’ve just cut caffeine, and it’s the one where the disappointment runs deepest. They assume that because...
Caffeine-free hot chocolate that isn't a sugar bomb: the carob-and-cocoa mug, done right
Most of the caffeine-free drinks I develop are trying to stand in for coffee. Hot chocolate isn’t, and that’s why it’s such a relief to make. Nobody sips a m...
Turmeric golden milk latte from scratch: the caffeine-free warm cup, done right
Most caffeine-free warm drinks are imitating coffee. Chicory, roasted barley, dandelion — they’re all trying, more or less convincingly, to give you back the...
Caffeine-free mocha recipes: 5 ways to get the coffee-chocolate combo without the buzz
A mocha is the drink people miss most when they leave coffee. Not the plain cup — the mocha. It’s the one that feels like a treat, the one you ordered when y...
Carob vs cocoa: the caffeine-free chocolate swap that actually works
I came to carob sideways. A recipe-testing client wanted a hot chocolate their evening-sensitive customers could drink at 9pm without lying awake, and cocoa ...
Iced coffee alternatives: 7 caffeine-free recipes for hot mornings
I make a hot drink every winter morning and an iced drink every summer afternoon. The hot one I can wing — chicory in a French press, splash of milk, done. T...
How to make a chicory latte: 6 recipes from classic to iced
I get asked about chicory lattes more than any other drink on this site. Some people want a creamy caffeine-free morning ritual, some are tapering off coffee...
How to brew chicory root: three methods I actually use
I’ll say the loud part first: chicory root is the best coffee alternative you can buy for under ten dollars. I’ve tried all of them — mushroom powders, carob...