Dandelion Coffee

I’ve been drinking dandelion coffee for years now and heartily recommend a daily cuppa to any of my peops needing some liver support. The liver does a myriad of things including clearing the blood of toxins and nasty chemicals. So yep it certainly earns it’s keep, being bombarded left right and centre with toxins from air, food and water, never mind medications and cleaning products. Dandelions are rich in vitamins and minerals, trace minerals and micro nutrients. In my garden I’ve been leaving all the dandelions alone, resisting the urge to pull them out whilst weeding, with a mind to harvesting the roots and making my own coffee. Two year old plants harvested autumn/early winter are best as the roots are larger, tastier and more nutrient dense.

To make your own dandelion coffee carefully dig up any larger/older plants and gently remove as much of the dirt as you can. Trim off the green tops. For coffee it’s the roots you will use. I put the still muddy roots into a bucket of water. By simply swishing them around vigorously, emptying the muddy water out, putting fresh water, swishing them around again you manage to get them clean. I changed the water about 8 times until the roots looked like this and it probably took about 5 minutes max.

Place the washed roots into a food processor and whizz them up until they look like this

Spread the whizzed up roots onto a baking dish

Bake 130C with the oven door slightly ajar for about 1 1/2 hours (turning occasionally) or until roasted golden/brown and looking like this.

Store in a sealed glass jar. (I added one of those little absorbent silicon bags) To make a tasty cuppa place a small teaspoon of the granules into a strainer and infuse in boiling water for 5 minutes or alternately bring to the boil in a pot and simmer for a few minutes. Enjoy!