Surrogates: Anything but the coffee

From Filter Stories - Coffee Documentaries by James Harper

March 2, 2026 · 46 min · Season 7 · Episode 3

About this episode

The episode explores the historical context and taste testing of coffee substitutes when coffee is unavailable.

What happens when coffee disappears? This is not a thought experiment! It’s happened many times in history: War, blockades, tariffs, ideology, health panics, sanctions, supply shocks. When coffee is not around, people still need something warm, comforting, and familiar. And throughout history, people have reached for coffee surrogates: roasted plants and grains engineered to look like coffee…but do they actually taste like coffee? In this episode, Jonathan and James time-travel by taste testing a truly alarming number of coffee substitutes. Spoiler: you will hear a lot of spitting! Which leads to the bigger question: can anything actually replace coffee—or will we always come crawling back? Please spread the word about A History of Coffee! Follow us on Instagram - James (@filterstoriespodcast) and Jonathan (@coffeehistoryjm) - and tag us in an Instagram story. Write a review on Apple Podcasts Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify This free educational content for the coffee community was made possible by Mahlkönig, manufacturers of world-leading coffee grinders for 100 years for your home and cafe. Read Jonathan’s book, ‘Coffee: A Global History’ Support James’ work directly by buying…

People in this episode

Host: James Harper

Guest: Jonathan

Topics covered

coffee substitutes
history of coffee
taste testing
cultural impact
surrogates

Keywords

coffee
substitutes
history
taste testing
surrogates
Mahlkönig
decaf technology

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Standart, Karin’s Subtack

Books & works: Coffee: A Global History

Places: Smith’s Coffee in Hemel Hempstead, UK