Dandelion root
The taproot of an extremely common weed, roasted and brewed as a dark, bitter drink. Roasting is what makes it drinkable — the raw root is intensely bitter and quite different.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Taraxacum officinale
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Part used
- Root
- Origin
- Eurasia, and now naturalised worldwide
- Drunk in
- Britain, France, Germany, Poland
Character
Dark, bitter and roasted, with a caramel sweetness underneath. It is much closer to coffee than to tea in register, which is why it was used as a substitute.
Notes: roasted grain, caramel, earth
History
Roasted dandelion root was a widespread coffee substitute in Europe during the nineteenth century and again during both world wars, when imported coffee was unavailable. Its modern presence is a continuation of that substitute tradition rather than an independent one.
How it is drunk
Drunk in Britain, France and central Europe as a coffee alternative, usually blended with chicory or barley. The gathering tradition is domestic — it is a plant almost nobody buys seed for.
Production
Roots are lifted in autumn when they are largest, washed, chopped and roasted until dark. Roast depth is the whole of the flavour control: light roasting leaves it bitter, dark roasting brings out caramel.
Preparation
Decoction · Roasted grain infusion
Boiling and decoction
1–3 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 10 min
Common mistakes
- Buying raw rather than roasted root and expecting the coffee-like drink.
Related botanicals
- Chicory root — Two roasted Asteraceae roots used as coffee substitutes for the same historical reason: coffee was unavailable.
- Burdock root — Both roasted roots, and burdock is markedly the gentler and sweeter of the two.
- Chicory root — Both roasted bitter roots sold as coffee alternatives, and commonly blended without either being named.
- Valerian — Earthy bitter roots with more aroma than flavour, and neither is drunk alone by choice.
- Elecampane — Deeply bitter European roots from monastery and hedgerow, both used in pinches in mixed bitters.
Comparisons
- Valerian vs dandelion root — Two earthy bitter European roots with more aroma than flavour, and neither is drunk alone by choice. Valerian’s smell is a widely shared complaint; dandelion’s is roasted and rather pleasant.
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Taraxacum officinale F. H. Wigg. — GRIN-Global Taxonomy record— retrieved and read, not countersigned by a named human. That source covers naming and distribution only. Everything else on this page — history, culture, production, flavour, preparation and buying advice — is TeaHQ’s own synthesis with no external source behind it.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Dandelion root is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.