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Chicory is a common additive in Indian Coffee. A quick search in wikipedia reveals that it is usually 20-30% in coffee powder. Can coffee be made solely out of chicory? Does the chicory root contain caffeine or just the flavor profile of coffee?

Dharini Chandrasekaran
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  • This answer to a previous question is related: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/9163/1672 – Cascabel Apr 24 '12 at 19:12
  • There is coffee made solely of chicory, yes - or at least without real coffee, it could contain some other additives. Popular brands are Inka and Caro. – rumtscho Apr 25 '12 at 11:46
  • civil war soldiers in america used to use chicory in the field because coffee was scarce or too expensive. – Brendan May 06 '13 at 19:00
  • Also dandelion makes a similar coffee substitute – Escoce Jun 01 '16 at 15:22

2 Answers2

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Roasted chicory root (which is what you are adding to coffee) contains no caffeine.

What chicory does is add a nice, roasted flavor to coffee, which is desireable either for cultural reasons, or to offset the bitter flavor of over-roasted low-grade coffee beans. Originally, it was also added because it was much, much cheaper than coffee. That's not true anymore, even in India as far as I know.

Proper New Orleans or Vietnamese coffee also contains a lot of chicory.

FuzzyChef
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Chicory has no caffeine, hence it reduces the caffeine content in brewed coffee. It also thickens the brew.

rumtscho
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Bhas
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