It seems that we will soon have to switch to the well-known coffee substitute - chicory, writes the Russian publication MK.ru, commenting on the ever-increasing prices of caffeinated drinks in the country.
Coffee was in acute shortage in the USSR. But for some reason it was imported not from Brazil, but from India, which was by no means the largest producer: the Indians themselves, as is well known, prefer to grow tea.
The working class was left with only substitutes such as chicory or barley, the taste of which barely resembled real Arabica or Robusta, but which could be drunk as much as they wanted.
Chicory was grown in Belarus, Ukraine and Central Russia. Its roots were dried and roasted until dark brown. The drink resembled the taste of coffee, but without caffeine.
After the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is called in Russia, coffee was not in short supply - there was none at all. It was believed that Soviet citizens could do without these aristocratic pretensions. Accustomed to the lack of everything on the shelves, citizens made themselves coffee from carrots and acorns, insisting that it tasted exactly like real coffee, the aroma of which no one could even remember.
People prepared all these options themselves: the industry of great achievements had no time for the desires of ordinary citizens to drink a cup of coffee in the morning, writes MK.ru.
The country lived under restrictions and the Iron Curtain and thought that this was how it should be, with the Soviets having their own pride and their own coffee. But it was not a matter of tradition, but of survival.
It seems that we are returning to what we had left behind, only now the problem is not the ban on coffee supplies, but the skyrocketing price. The author asks at the end of the article: should I go and collect acorns?