The Cynical Evolution of Coffee Substitutes

In times of turmoil and uncertainty, coffee drinkers turn to substitutes. This has been true for hundreds of years, whether due to war impacting the supply of beans, rising commodity costs, or trends that position coffee as unhealthy. Rather than stop drinking coffee altogether, consumers typically look for ways to stretch their supplies, or replace the taste.

Chicory, for instance, became a popular substitute during a coffee ban in 18th-century Prussia and throughout the U.S. Civil War. Cereal magnate (and caffeine hater) C.W. Post’s first product, developed in 1895, was a coffee replacement called Postum. And a coffee crisis in 1970s East Germany led to the popularity of Kaffee-Mix, which consisted of 51% coffee and 49% ... other stuff.

Many classic coffee alternatives can still be found on supermarket shelves—Barleycup is a popular (?) product in the United Kingdom that I still remember from my childhood. And with the growth of the wellness industry and concerns over caffeine intake, there has also been a marked increase in wellness-coded alt-coffee products like delicious (?) adaptogenic mushroom-based beverages.

The rise in commodity coffee prices over the past year has spawned the latest resurgence of inexpensive substitutes. These range from coffee blends bulked out with additives like corn or nuts to completely coffee-less products, such as the Brazilian brand that recently made headlines for misadvertising its fake coffee.

This moment of spiking prices has also been a particular boon for so-called “beanless” coffee brands. Self-cast as plucky startups looking to disrupt a stale sector, these companies are themselves often extremely well-funded through venture capital backing. They’re also in the habit of making bold claims about their products’ revolutionary qualities: Where once they sold themselves as climate-saving and deforestation-solving, now they’re promoting their ersatz coffee products as an innovative way for drinkers to cut costs without sacrificing flavour.

Despite their Silicon Valley gloss, however, these disruptor companies aren’t offering much of a departure from the old-school coffee alternatives that have been around for centuries. Instead, their cynical attempts to capitalise on the present moment’s coffee price spikes points to a more sinister objective.

A Short and Incomplete History of Coffee Substitutes

Coffee substitutes have been around for almost as long as coffee has been commercially produced, with written documentation of “oat coffee” appearing as far back as 1733. Because of the steep costs associated with importing what was then a truly luxury good, most Europeans at the time cut their coffee with cheaper adulterants. According to historian Dr. Gabrielle Robilliard, “As a medical commentator noted in 1801, the coffee sold by the shopkeepers in Hamburg usually consisted of rotten coffee beans and often also peas, potatoes and the like: ‘For several years our common man has been also growing accustomed to chicory, for even the worst coffee is too dear for him’”.

The popularity of such alternatives has waxed and waned over the centuries. Generally, interest increased during times when coffee was scarce or expensive—or randomly banned by one specific ruler with an axe to grind. In the wake of the Seven Years’ War, Frederick the Great of Prussia sought to encourage his subjects to consume locally produced chicory or beer instead of coffee. “It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence”, Frederick said in a 1777 proclamation.

Although he originally tried to ban coffee entirely, he settled for monopolising the roasting process. To deter smugglers, Frederick also employed 400 wounded soldiers to work as Kaffeeriecher, or “coffee sniffers”, whose job it was to detect and eradicate illegal coffee-roasting operations (needless to say, they were not very popular).

Naval blockades, such as those during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s and the American Civil War of 1861–65, also resulted in the uptake of coffee alternatives. Chicory was the most consumed, and in fact, chicory coffee continues to be a popular drink in New Orleans to this day. 

The connection between war and coffee shortages is a recurring theme. Throughout World War I, the Allied naval blockade of the North Sea caused the German government to promote the consumption of “coffee” made from acorns, chicory, and other ingredients. During and after World War II, coffee was once again rationed across most combatant countries: Italians had caffè d’orzo, an espresso-style beverage made from roasted barley, while C.W. Post’s Postum saw a renaissance in popularity in the United States.

More recently, the East German coffee crisis in the late 1970s was a period of great scarcity, a result of the Iron Curtain and the 1975 Black Frost in Brazil that upended coffee supplies worldwide. To cope, the GDR government introduced Kaffee-Mix, a blend of 51% coffee and 49% “various surrogates”, according to a post by Rebecca Hall on the DDR Museum’s website. It was not well-received. “The mixture not only clogged many coffee machines, but also did not meet the taste of GDR citizens”, Hall wrote. “The GDR government had not expected such a storm of protest, but the people prevailed. As quickly as it was introduced, [Kaffee-Mix] disappeared from the shelves again”.

In modern times, many traditional coffee substitutes have taken on a wholesome, almost nostalgic quality—in fact, the revived Postum’s tagline is “the hot beverage with warm memories”. But more recently, a new breed of startups—many with venture capital backing—are taking a decidedly more antagonistic approach.

Time Is a Flat Circle

Over the past few years, “beanless” coffee brands like Atomo, Minus, and Prefer have all received breathless media coverage about their revolutionary potential. No longer vaguely unpleasant concoctions stoically consumed out of necessity, these modern alt-coffees have become trendy, sleek, and covetable.

Many coffee substitutes are also explicitly wellness-focused, especially the mushroom-based ones. Buzzwords like “antioxidant-rich”, “adaptogenic”, and “naturally occurring prebiotics” show up a lot, as do promises to give drinkers the energy boost of caffeine without the nasty crash. “Energy and focus without the jitters”, reads the tagline on the website of MudWtr. Four Sigmatic’s site promotes “a clearer mind”, “smooth digestion”, and the fact that it is “science-backed”. (Some of the “experts and performers” who “trust” Four Sigmatic include the health influencer Dr. Mark Hyman, the “ultra-endurance athlete” and podcaster Rich Roll—and Joe Rogan.)

If they are to be believed, contemporary alt-coffee brands are catering to consumers who are fed up with caffeine and coffee, and who are desperately seeking alternatives. “We see a pronounced trend away from caffeine as people want more healthy energy but not increased stress”, Caroline MacDougall, founder of the chicory-based herbal coffee substitute Teeccino, told Rachel Arthur in Beverage Daily. “They are realizing the importance of deep sleep and they are eating healthier foods, maintaining healthy biorhythms and finding they have more energy without caffeine than with it”. 

Off the back of these claims, Mud\Wtr, Teeccino, and Four Sigmatic have all received hefty venture capital infusions in their bid to disrupt Big Coffee. Atomo alone has raised almost $60 million, Minus at least $4.5 million, and Prefer $2 million. 

And yet, how novel can these products really be—especially when many of them are made with the same materials as their decidedly less glamorous forebears? As N.C. Stevens wrote in a 2023 article on coffee alternatives for Sprudge, such brands are “tak[ing] traditional substitutes and reintroduc[ing] them to the modern audience”, from date seeds and roasted dandelions to lupin beans, rice hulls, and chickpeas. 

If these brands’ wellness claims feel cynical, then, so do their latest attempts to capitalise on the soaring price of coffee. 

On LinkedIn, the coffee consultant and podcaster Chris Deferio shared an email he received from Atomo, which specifically pitched its coffee substitute as a solution to the “crisis” of high coffee prices. Atomo’s “Premium Blend”, the email said, offered a way for companies to blend their own coffee with Atomo’s fake substitute, a solution that could “dramatically cut costs without sacrificing quality or taste”.

Similarly, Minus has a section on its website about the “rise of coffee costs”, which positions its product as a worthy alternative. The Singapore-based Prefer has also billed itself as a cheaper coffee alternative. In a 2024 article for Grist, L.V. Anderson wrote that Prefer was pitching itself to Singaporean clients “with a promise to beat the price of their cheapest arabica beans”. Jake Berber, co-founder and CEO of Prefer, told Anderson that, “We will, in the future, be the commodity of coffee”.

Don’t Call Them Substitutes

This isn’t the first time that these “beanless” brands have latched on to the coffee crisis du jour: before they cast themselves as more affordable coffee alternatives, they’d positioned themselves as sustainable solutions to deforestation.

On the surface that might sound plausible, but specialty coffee is what they’re trying to replace, and the majority of specialty coffee is grown sustainably. As I have written before, agroforestry-based coffee farms can even actively remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Moreover, demonising coffee farmers by constantly linking what they do to deforestation and environmental degradation not only targets some of the most marginalised workers in the coffee value chain, but also elides the fact that hundreds of millions of VC dollars could have been used much more effectively by farmers at origin if supply chain sustainability were really the aim.

Even though the fake coffee CEOs make sure to say that they care about coffee farmers and that they’re only trying to help with growing demand, coffee farmers en masse would have to lose out for all these companies to succeed. Venture capitalists don’t invest hundreds of millions of dollars just to capture a tiny slice of the coffee market—they want a fast and exponential return on investment. 

In addition to being disconnected from the longstanding practices of coffee production, these “beanless” brands don’t seem to understand why consumers turn to coffee in the first place. There’s something meaningful about drinking a delicious beverage grown from the earth and produced with care by humans—and it’s noteworthy that many of the articles I read for this piece bemoaned the lack of “coffee aroma” in the synthetic versions.

Silicon Valley, venture capitalists, and tech startups love the idea of “disruption”, which has steadily crept into the world of food and beverages in recent years. Ashley Rodriguez at Boss Barista wrote a great piece recently about disruptor olive oil brands, and it seems like the latest alt-coffee companies are trying to do the same thing.

Coffee substitutes are an age-old tradition, and have offered an alternative for the caffeine-sensitive or for coffee drinkers in times of strife for hundreds of years. But until now, they were never trying to replace coffee outright, or claim to be superior to the real thing. That’s the difference between those relatively wholesome coffee substitutes of yore and the latest iterations—slick, VC-funded “disruptors” cynically pivoting to whichever new strategy they think will attract customers.

If you believe their messaging, the future of coffee will have no coffee at all. I don’t think that’s a future most of us want to inhabit.