In the 18th century coffee was largely considered a luxury or
superfluity. Coffee was expensive and there were many attempts to replace some
of the coffee beans with cheaper domestic alternatives such as roasted bread,
beans, malt, peas, rye or juniper berries.
The industrially produced surrogates became more widely available as
coffee-drinking grew in popularity towards the end of the 19th
century. The surrogates were made from produce such as barley or chicory.
In 1881 Mr D. Schmith of Östersund, Sweden, started a factory for
producing coffee surrogatein
Nikolaistad (present Vaasa). Another factory started in Ilmola the same year
and in 1883 Wilhelm Schauman’s chicory factory was founded in Jakobstad.
Cichorium intybus is a perennial herbaceous plant with light blue flowers. In addition
to rye, chicory was the most popular substitute for coffee. Only the root of
the chicory plant was used forthe
surrogate. The root was baked, then ground and finally steamed before it was
ready to use.
Chicory is not native to the Finnish flora and thus the unprocessed
roots were imported from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Russia. During
World War I, however, chicory was also grown in many gardens in Finland.
