Don't Fight the Dandelions, Drink Them

Dandelions make the most delicious coffee substitute as well as a wine which is as potent as most hard liquors. Second article in the series on dandelions. This is the second article in a series of three on the benefits of dandelions. In the first one, I share how I eat them, and in the third one, I encourage you to use them as medicine. Both articles are linked below along with other articles on plants with health benefits.

Are you addicted to coffee?

Well, if it is the caffeine which you crave and you want to overcome the addiction, this article may not help you. If, however, you simply like the taste of coffee, you may want to try a dandelion blend for a change. During World War II, real coffee was not available in Germany. The "Kaffee" which people drank was made of roasted grain, mainly barley. To this day, many Germans drink barley coffee. The most expensive and best-tasting coffee substitute, however, is made from roasted dandelion roots. It has a delicious flavor which even I like, even though I never touch coffee. There is a German brand of instant dandelion coffee which is so delicious that it might be addictive if it were not so expensive in North America. Half a teaspoon of it is as satisfying to me as a piece of dark chocolate. It enhances the taste of chocolate ice-cream when sprinkled on it, converting it to mocha ice-cream. It also turns hot chocolate into a hot mocha drink.

Make your own dandelion coffee.

One year here in Canada, we made our own dandelion coffee. We had a lot of healthy dandelion roots from a field which had just been converted into gardens. It takes a lot of dandelion roots to make the exercise worthwhile. Endive roots, however, can be used in place of dandelion roots. They are larger and mature is one single growing season, whereas dandelions require several years to make the harvest worthwhile. The taste is the same.
Dig up the roots. Wash them. Cut them into pieces. Dry them. Then roast them in a cast iron pan with the element on high, stirring constantly for uniform roasting.
That is how I remember the dry barley being roasted, in a cast iron pan.

Dandelion Moonshine

What else can you do with dandelions? Well, you can make wine with it. Mind you, the wine uses so much sugar that the medicinal value of the remedy appears suspect. If, however, you are going to consume liquor anyway, it might as well contain some beneficial nutrients. I must admit that I have never made dandelion wine, but I have tasted it at a Hutterite colony in southern Manitoba. After the tiniest sip, I decided that I did not want to finish my shot-glass. It tasted like hard liquor, and just the thought of hard liquor turns my stomach. In my childhood, we had to swallow a mouthful of Schnaps whenever we had an upset stomach. Ever since then, every time I taste hard liquor, I remember the upset stomachs of my childhood.