Chicory Coffee

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 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.

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, where coffee is commonly blended with chicory.
• Parts of Southeast Asia.
• Britain’s 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: a sweet coffee and chicory essence from Glasgow.
• Liquid coffee concentrate: including the old New Orleans drip extract.
• South Indian filter: coffee and chicory brewed slowly through a steel filter.
• Automatic drip: an easy way to brew a pot of coffee and chicory.

Explore every boiled and pot-brewed method in the boiled chapter.