Coffee made of wheat, peas & potatoes
As noted by Jan Kitowicz, coffee spread from the wealthy to ‘the hoi polloi, and coffee houses emerged in towns; shoemakers, tailors, market wives, porters and the poorest mob, they all wanted coffee’.
In wealthier households, coffee spending sometime amounted to as much as a quarter of what was spent on alcohol. Over a decade, the demand for coffee increased several times over.
Poorer people also drank coffee, though it was not always made 100% from coffee beans. There were various substitutes. The taste of coffee was imitated by roasted wheat or peas, as ‘people crave coffee and a household without it is perceived as crude and thrifty; besides coffee is addictive, just like vodka or tobacco’, as the author of Opis Obyczajów wrote. The idea of adding various roasted products to coffee probably came to Poland via Prussia where, amongst other things, dried and ground chicory root was added to coffee beans.
Calendars and household guides in the 18th-century presented many recipes for ‘coffee-like’ beverages. Following the 1795 Polish translation of the famous book about coffee by a French scientist Pierre Buchoz, Dissertations sur l’utilite, et le bons et mauvais effets du tabac, du café, du cacao et du thé (A Concise Book on Coffee, its Nature and Effects on Human Health), let’s mention just some of these coffee-like beverages: coffee made of roasted rye, chicory roots, broad beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, linden seeds, and even acorns.
The latter are also mentioned by the author of Przepisy Rolnictwa i Ogrodnictwa (Recipes of Horticulture and Agriculture) from 1796. The acorn drink resembles coffee in taste, ‘just adding some good cream is required, as the drink is extremely dark’.