Friday, July 6, 2012

Dandelion Coffee

Dandelion coffee. Is it just hype or is it really good for you? 
I am not sure, but I like it. I mentioned in an earlier post that I had dug up 4 good sized roots to make into dandelion coffee. 
fresh dandelion roots after washing
I washed them, and put them in a shallow woven bamboo basket to dry in the cab of my truck. After a week, the roots were brittle and snapped readily. I found out that this step is not really necessary, I could have just chopped the roots and began roasting right away. Live and learn.
dried dandelion roots
I snapped and cut the roots into pieces about 1cm long, and arranged them on a cookie sheet. Then I put them in the oven at about 150 degrees C. for about 30 minutes, stirring them up occasionally with some chopsticks. Soon the house was filled with a wonderful aroma. Who would have thought that dandelion roots roasting would smell so heavenly? 
When the roots changed color from tan to dark brown, I turned off the oven and let them cool. 
In the morning, I ground some up in my electric coffee grinder, put about one scoop of the powder in a regular coffee maker, and dripped out four cups. Smelled pretty good, but I didn't drink any. I put it in a thermos and took it to City Hall.
They looked at me pretty weird when I asked to have it tested, but they are good about this kind of stuff. 
When I came back in half an hour, they gave me the good news: My dandelion coffee came back clean!
No Cs 134/137 detected in dandelion coffee!

I do love it when I get negative results! The lab attendants and I then enjoyed some of the coffee together, and I refrigerated the rest to make iced dandelion coffee. That was amazing. The flavor is not so much like real coffee. It is earthier. Maybe a darker roast might taste more like the real thing. But the bitterness was quite pleasant.
The dandelion coffee had another thing in common with regular coffee. It is an amazing diuretic. My blood feels so clean now!

Now that I know it is clean, I can make larger batches and keep me drinking it all year round!
Posted by Eric at 10:35 AM
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6 comments:

  1. Dan R-MJuly 7, 2012 at 4:39 AM

    Wicked. That's so freaking cool. And congratulations for the clear test result!
    I don't suppose you're familiar with Dandy-Blend? That's the first I'd heard of dandelion-based coffee-substitutes. I strongly dislike coffee, but I found it pretty good. Not good enough to make a habit out of, but good :)

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    1. EricJuly 10, 2012 at 6:34 AM

      Dandy blend... never heard of that. Is it straight dandelions or does it have other stuff in it?

      Delete
    2. Dan R-MJuly 16, 2012 at 4:16 AM

      It's also got chicory root and a couple of others, I think.

      Delete
  2. Sunny DayJuly 9, 2012 at 10:03 PM

    E - Can you imagine if we knew this when we were still kids? With the dandelion bonanza happening in the pasture across the road? Of course, when we were still kids, we didn't really drink this sort of thing. So I guess there is a reason kids don't think about and try this sort of thing....

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    Replies
    1. EricJuly 10, 2012 at 6:36 AM

      That would have been a lot of coffee we could have made every year. We could have become dandelion coffee millionaires...

      Delete
  3. Sunny DayJuly 11, 2012 at 12:54 AM

    Rather like the time that we decided that we were going to be night crawler millionaires. Oh well.

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