Brewing, blending, and baking with the alternatives.
A reader who tried the caffeine-free coffee jelly recipe asked a follow-up worth its own answer: does the same swap work for dalgona, the whipped-coffee drin...
A reader question that’s been sitting in our inbox since the cafe-orders piece went up, paraphrased: “Is there anything that’s actually a dessert, not a drin...
Danny Okonkwo, six years a barista in Leeds, left a comment on a piece about ordering caffeine-free abroad that pointed out something closer to home: the caf...
Owen Baptiste, in Port of Spain, has now sent us two ideas in a row, and this one landed the same day the curry-base piece went up. That piece worked out wha...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...