I am in a high-end coffee shop in a tech-heavy area of San Francisco, staring suspiciously into a cup of espresso. This is no conventional coffee: it is made without using a single coffee bean.
It comes from Atomo, one of a band of alt-coffee start-ups hoping to revolutionise the world of brewed coffee.
“We take great offence when someone says that we’re a coffee substitute,” says Andy Kleitsch, the chief executive of Seattle based start-up Atomo, from whose pure, beanless ground product my espresso has been made.
Traditional coffee substitutes have a reputation for not tasting much like coffee and are usually caffeine-free.
However, the newcomers intend to replicate one of the world’s most popular beverages from taste, to caffeine punch, to drinking experience – and the first of this nascent industry’s beanless concoctions have begun to appear.
Coffee substitute, coffee alternative, caffeinated beverage are all possible descriptions, but this is not coffee.
Hard agree, but prepare for a possible “fight”. Nut drinkers also like to claim they enjoy their nut “milk”.
Or even fruit “tea” drinkers…
I agree that nut juice(?) is probably not milk, but only coffee and cascara comes from the Coffea plant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffea
They have taken great offense from your statement!
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The gauntlet is down.
Atomo’s ingredients aren’t particularly high tech: date seeds, ramón seeds, sunflower seed extract, fructose, pea protein, millet, lemon, guava, fenugreek seeds, caffeine and baking soda.
For those wondering.
So it’s a coffee alternative. Like chicory but with caffeine.
But, importantly, also without chicory…
Chicory is gross
I can’t help but wonder whether having 3 tropical plants involved is actually better than one.
That is the ingredient list for their espresso. Weirdly enough, the coffee they sell is 50% real coffee grounds (per the ingredient list on their website). Kinda feels like cheating.
So is the idea to cheapen coffee given that the price of it is likely to increase with potential tariffs and climate change?
Or is it just because?
Atomo’s ingredients aren’t particularly high tech: date seeds, ramón seeds, sunflower seed extract, fructose, pea protein, millet, lemon, guava, fenugreek seeds, caffeine and baking soda.
Things begin with waste date seeds or pits. Rock hard, they are granulated then infused with a secret marinade of ingredients from the list above, before being roasted to create new flavours, aromas and compounds.
Further ingredients then finish things off. Atomo’s caffeine is sourced from green tea decaffeination, though synthetically-made caffeine is also used to provide beanless coffee’s kick.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Coffee.
The only thing I wanted to know is: does it taste any good?
As for trying Atomo, both the coffee shop espresso and the brew-at-home version tasted close enough to good coffee for me. Perhaps luckily for these companies, coffee can have many different undertones.
That’s it? Over 1000 words for ‘close enough’?
I’m fussy about real coffee, I’m going to need a bit more detail.
Probably best not to ask for that level of reporting from the BBC.
If all you care about is whether it tastes good and not whether it tastes the same, then I have this great coffee substitute.
hands bag of Haribo
Latter day café?
Link to map of coffee shops where you can buy Atomo:
https://www.atomocoffee.com/pages/store-locator
Spoiler alert it’s mostly in NYC and California.
