Disclosure

How we make money, whose money we take, and what that means for what you read here.

Ownership disclosure

Coffee Alternatives (the website you’re on right now) is owned and operated by Teeccino, Inc., a California herbal-coffee company. Teeccino manufactures and sells chicory- and carob-based herbal coffees.

This is important context. It means:

  1. Teeccino products will appear on this site more often than a random outside publication would feature them. We’ve used them for years and we stand behind many of them — that informs our coverage.
  2. We do not give Teeccino products an automatic top ranking. In every roundup where a Teeccino product appears, at least two non-Teeccino alternatives are also covered. Rankings reflect our honest assessment after blind-or-semi-blind testing.
  3. We cover brands that compete directly with Teeccino. If a Ryze, MUD\WTR, Four Sigmatic, Rasa, Crio Bru, Pero, or Cafix product is better for a given use case, we say so.

If you ever feel our coverage is skewed because of this ownership relationship, please email us. We take those concerns seriously — our value depends on our credibility.

Affiliate disclosure

We participate in affiliate marketing programs, including:

  • Teeccino.com direct affiliate links — we earn a commission on purchases made through these links
  • Amazon Associates — commission on purchases originating from links to Amazon product pages
  • Occasional direct brand partnerships with other coffee-alternative companies

When we include an affiliate link:

  • The link takes you to the merchant’s site at the normal price (no markup)
  • We earn a small commission if you make a purchase
  • This does not change our ranking or recommendation
  • We try to mark affiliate links where they appear (usually as “Shop on Teeccino.com” or similar explicit calls to action)

When we don’t:

  • Brands don’t pay us to review, to rank higher, or to write favorably
  • We don’t accept free products in exchange for a positive review (we test with store-bought product or clearly-labeled review samples)
  • We don’t write sponsored content disguised as editorial

Editorial independence

Within the ownership structure described above, our editors and writers operate under an editorial charter that includes:

  • No pre-approval: Teeccino does not approve articles before publication
  • No removal: Teeccino does not request article removal
  • No veto on negative coverage: Including negative coverage of competitors, of Teeccino products specifically, or of the category at large

When we make a mistake — a scientific misquote, an unfair ranking, a product spec we got wrong — we correct it and mark the correction visibly at the end of the article.

Images and illustration

Some images on this site are generated with AI tools. Where that’s the case, we label it directly under the image — you’ll see a small “AI-generated illustration” credit. We don’t think readers should have to guess, so we’d rather say it every time than quietly not mention it.

Here’s the line we draw. Generated imagery is used only for atmosphere and illustration — a kitchen counter at dawn, an empty bed at 3am, a mug going cold on a side table. It sets a mood for an essay. It is never used to:

  • Depict a product. Every product photo on this site shows the actual thing. We will not generate a package, a label, or a brand’s product, ever — partly on principle, and partly because these tools cannot spell, and we’ve watched them invent a founding year and turn real label copy into nonsense.
  • Stand in as evidence. No generated image is used to show a test result, a brew we claim to have made, a before-and-after, or anything a reader might reasonably read as documentary proof.
  • Invent a person. We don’t generate photographs of people presented as real — not our writers, not readers, not “someone who tried this.” Where a person belongs in an illustration, you’ll see them as a hand, a silhouette, a turned back, or an empty chair.
  • Fake a photo credit. Generated images are never credited to a photographer or passed off as licensed stock.

Photographs of real products, real brews, and our own kitchens are credited normally, or not at all if they’re ours. If you spot an image on this site that seems mislabelled in either direction, tell us — same standing offer as everything else here.

Health & safety disclosure

Articles on this site are for information, not medical advice. We do our best to cite peer-reviewed research and regulatory guidance, but:

  • Individual responses to caffeine and its alternatives vary widely
  • Herbal ingredients can interact with prescription medications
  • Pregnancy, nursing, and pre-existing conditions change what’s safe

Always talk to a clinician before making significant changes to your caffeine or supplement intake.

Contact

Questions about this disclosure, editorial practices, or a specific article: hello@coffeealternatives.com.