# Chicory Coffee

Source: https://dailyextraction.com/methods/chicory-coffee/
Last updated: 2026-10-20

> Chicory coffee is coffee blended with the roasted, ground root of the chicory plant. It's brewed like ordinary filter coffee and is famous in New Orleans, where Café Du Monde serves it as café au lait: half hot coffee, half hot milk. Chicory adds body and a bitter, chocolate-like note, and it has long been used to stretch coffee when beans were scarce.

## At a glance

- Grind: Medium (sand)
- Water temperature: Just off the boil
- Category: Boiled & Traditional (Immersion)
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Origin: United States
- Also known as: New Orleans coffee, coffee and chicory, café au lait chicorée

## Steps

1. **Brew strong coffee and chicory**: Brew a coffee and chicory blend as you would any filter coffee, a little stronger than usual if you're adding milk.
2. **Heat the milk**: Heat milk until hot but not boiling. Café Du Monde's demonstration guide uses milk at 170°F (about 77°C).
3. **Pour half and half**: Fill each cup half with hot coffee and half with hot milk, the way Café Du Monde serves café au lait.
4. **Adjust to taste**: Add more milk for a lighter cup or less for a darker one, and sugar if you like.

**Chicory coffee** is coffee blended with the **roasted, ground root of the chicory plant**. It's brewed just like ordinary filter coffee, and it's most famous in **New Orleans**, where it's the house style at **Café Du Monde**, served as **café au lait**: half hot coffee, half hot milk. Chicory adds **body and a bitter, roasted, chocolate-like note**, and for centuries it has been the go-to way to **stretch coffee** when beans were scarce or expensive. Here's how to brew and serve it, and how it ended up in New Orleans.

## The short version

- **Coffee plus roasted chicory root**, usually sold ready-blended.
- **Brew it like filter coffee**, in a filter machine or pour-over.
- **Serve it New Orleans style**: half coffee, half hot milk.
- **Less caffeine** than pure coffee, because chicory has none.
- **A wartime habit** in New Orleans that never went away.



## What is chicory, and what does it add?

Chicory (*Cichorium intybus*) is a perennial with blue flowers and a long tap root. Ukers describes how the root is **cut into slices, kiln-dried and roasted** in much the same way as coffee. Wikipedia notes that root chicory has long been grown in Europe as a coffee substitute, and that it's **baked, roasted and ground** for use as an additive.

In the cup, chicory gives a **bitter, roasted flavour** and a fuller body. Wikipedia's Café Du Monde article says it **adds a chocolate-like flavour** to café au lait. Because chicory contains **no caffeine**, a blend has less caffeine than the same weight of pure coffee.

## How do you brew chicory coffee?

Just as you'd brew any filter coffee. I'd use a filter machine or a pour-over cone, but a [French press](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/french-press/) works too, since the blend is simply ground coffee and ground root.

- **Use a pre-blended coffee and chicory**, or mix your own. I'd start with a small share of chicory and add more to taste, as it's strongly bitter.
- **Brew it a little stronger** than usual if you're going to add milk.
- **Medium grind** for drip and filter machines; coarse for a press.

![Chart of coffee grind sizes from extra fine to extra coarse, with medium highlighted for chicory coffee](https://dailyextraction.com/diagrams/grind-size.svg#medium "Chicory coffee is usually brewed as drip or filter coffee, at a medium grind.")

## How do you make New Orleans café au lait?

Café Du Monde's **coffee demonstration** guide sets out how the stand serves it:

| | Café Du Monde's café au lait |
| --- | --- |
| Coffee | A strong brew of coffee and chicory |
| Milk | Hot, at 170°F (about 77°C) |
| Mix | Half hot coffee, half hot milk |
| To adjust | More milk for lighter, less for darker; hot water for a weaker black coffee |

1. **Brew** a strong pot of coffee and chicory.
2. **Heat the milk** until hot but not boiling; Café Du Monde uses 170°F.
3. **Pour half and half** into each cup.
4. **Adjust** with more or less milk, and sugar if you like.

## How did chicory get into coffee?

| When | What happened | Source |
| --- | --- | --- |
| About 1750 | Roasted chicory as a coffee additive begins in **Holland** | Ukers (his chronology also gives 1770) |
| 1785 | Governor Bowdoin of Massachusetts introduces chicory to the United States | Ukers |
| 1795 | Brunswick, Germany, has 22 to 24 chicory factories | Wikipedia |
| Napoleonic era | Chicory often appears in French coffee as an adulterant or substitute | Wikipedia |
| 1840s | New Orleans is the second-largest coffee importer in the US, after New York | Wikipedia |
| 1861–1865 | Union naval blockades cut off New Orleans, and Louisianans stretch coffee with chicory | Wikipedia, Barista Magazine |
| 1862 | **Café Du Monde** is established in New Orleans; it still serves coffee with chicory | Wikipedia |

Barista Magazine notes that **chicory was far from the only substitute** during the Civil War: acorns, corn and parsnips were roasted and ground too. When the blockade lifted, most of the country went back to pure coffee, but **New Orleans kept its chicory**, along with cream and sugar.

## Where else is chicory used with coffee?

Wikipedia lists several other traditions:

- **[South Indian filter coffee](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/south-indian-filter/)**, where coffee is commonly blended with chicory.
- **Parts of Southeast Asia.**
- **Britain's [Camp Coffee](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/camp-coffee/)**, a coffee and chicory essence.
- **East Germany's *Mischkaffee*** ("mixed coffee"), introduced during the coffee crisis of 1976–1979.

*General guidance only. Take care with hot milk and coffee. If you're watching your caffeine, remember that a chicory blend still contains coffee.*

## Chicory coffee vs other methods

- **[Camp Coffee](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/camp-coffee/):** a sweet coffee and chicory essence from Glasgow.
- **[Liquid coffee concentrate](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/coffee-concentrate/):** including the old New Orleans drip extract.
- **[South Indian filter](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/south-indian-filter/):** coffee and chicory brewed slowly through a steel filter.
- **[Automatic drip](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/automatic-drip/):** an easy way to brew a pot of coffee and chicory.

Explore every boiled and pot-brewed method in the [boiled chapter](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/boiled/).

## Words used in this guide

- [Body](https://dailyextraction.com/glossary/body/): Body is how heavy and textured coffee feels in your mouth, from light and tea-like to thick and syrupy.
- [Pour-over](https://dailyextraction.com/glossary/pour-over/): Pour-over is a way of making filter coffee by hand: you pour hot water over ground coffee in a filter cone and let it drip through into a cup or jug.
- [Extraction](https://dailyextraction.com/glossary/extraction/): Extraction is the process of water dissolving flavour compounds out of ground coffee.

## FAQs

### What is chicory?

A perennial plant, Cichorium intybus, with blue flowers and a long tap root. For coffee, the root is sliced, dried, roasted and ground, and used as a coffee substitute or additive.

### Why do people in New Orleans put chicory in coffee?

Wikipedia says Louisianans began adding chicory when Union naval blockades cut off the port of New Orleans during the American Civil War, and the habit stuck. Café Du Monde, founded in 1862, still serves its coffee with chicory.

### What does chicory taste like in coffee?

It adds a bitter, roasted note; Wikipedia's Café Du Monde article describes chicory as adding a chocolate-like flavour to café au lait. Blends taste less of coffee and more of roast and body.

### Does chicory coffee have less caffeine?

Chicory root has no caffeine, so a blend has less caffeine than the same amount of pure coffee. How much less depends on the share of chicory in the blend.

### Where else is chicory added to coffee?

Wikipedia notes it's mixed into Indian filter coffee and used in parts of Southeast Asia, and in Britain, Camp Coffee is a coffee and chicory essence. In East Germany, Mischkaffee, coffee mixed with substitutes, was introduced during the coffee crisis of 1976–1979.

## Sources

- [Chicory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory)
- [Café Du Monde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_du_Monde)
- [Coffee demonstration](https://shop.cafedumonde.com/?p=47847)
- [Coffee drinks from around the world: chicory in history and today](https://www.baristamagazine.com/chicory-today/)
- [All About Coffee (1922), Project Gutenberg edition](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28500)