Kroffee: Great Caffeine-Free Coffee Alternative that Actually Energizes You

What in the world is kroffee? Kroffee is a caffeine-free coffee alternative, but not a traditional one. It doesn’t just taste like coffee or provide energizing effects like coffee; it does both.

What are “Traditional” Coffee Alternatives?

To be honest, the entire category of coffee alternatives is a bit non-traditional. That’s because most people are fine with having plain old coffee. So drinking anything other than coffee has been deemed unconventional, at least in the United States.

Most people are fine with coffee’s quick rise and the intense crash. They’re fine with the jitteriness and unease. They’re fine with ending up grumpy or downright socially inept if they somehow miss their morning cuppa.

We’re not okay with it, though.

We want to end coffee’s reign and its monopoly over our mornings (and our mid-mornings, and our late mornings, and our afternoons). We want to feel good for a couple hours after we have our morning brew, not just while we drink it. And that’s where coffee alternatives come in.

A lot of interesting coffee alternatives exist on the market. The coffee and tea aisles at grocery stores are increasingly filled with chicory tea and roasted dandelion extracts, or drink mixes with functional mushrooms like chaga and reishi. These coffee swaps have become mainstream—they’re almost ubiquitous in marketplaces. They’re becoming traditional.

What’s Wrong with a Typical Caffeinated or Caffeine-Free Coffee Alternative?

But here are some common issues with these “traditional” alternatives to coffee:

1. Many taste like coffee, but don’t provide any noticeable energizing effects. By 11 AM, you’re ready for a nap.
2. Some coffee alternatives (especially the mushroom blends) are gritty and have an unpleasant musty flavor. Bleh.
3. Many still contain caffeine, just… less of it. You might drink more to compensate, and you may never manage to lower your caffeine tolerance (if that’s your goal).

Now, we’re not fully against trying out these alternatives—in fact, we use one of them in our kroffee recipe below. Some taste pretty good, and many are quite good for you. Yet, if you’re looking for something tasty that also provides beneficial effects, making kroffee is the easy answer.

How is Kroffee Different? What’s In It?

Here’s how “kroffee” differs from coffee and common coffee alternatives:

1. It provides noticeable energizing effects and supports motivation and mood.
2. It tastes similar to coffee, and it’s smooth, not gritty.
3. It is entirely caffeine-free.
4. You can drink it later in the afternoon/evening without ruining your sleep.

If you’re a Top Tree Herbs regular, you can probably guess that the term kroffee is our shorthand for kratom coffee (but let’s be honest, we’d call it kroffee even if the name were longer, just for the fun of it). Here are the ingredients:

• Kratom tea (for energizing effects & mood support)
• Decaf espresso powder or herbal coffee (for flavor and potentially mild energizing effects)
• Your favorite type of milk or creamer (optional, for more flavor)

If you don’t know much about kratom, here’s our elevator pitch: Kratom is a tree that grows in Southeast Asia. People in that region have been brewing kratom tree leaves into tea to stay energized, upbeat, and relaxed for hundreds of years—just like how people in other parts of the globe have used coffee or black tea for many centuries.

Kratom isn’t as mainstream or well-understood in the United States as it is in other parts of the globe. However, it’s becoming steadily more popular as a caffeine alternative and mood supporter. It’s even used as a caffeine-free pre-workout drink and an uplifting base for non-alcoholic mocktails.

How Does Kroffee Keep You Energized If It’s Caffeine-Free?

Just like coffee or black tea, kratom leaves contain compounds which have psychoactive effects. The primary active alkaloid in coffee and black tea is caffeine. Kratom doesn’t contain any caffeine, but has other active alkaloids like mitragynine and speciogynine. Mitragynine is energizing, though it doesn’t work in the same way that caffeine does.

If you want to get into the weeds on how coffee and kratom compare (and how they can complement each other in your daily routine) check out this guide to coffee vs. kratom tea.

Now, let’s get to brewing.

Kroffee: Ultimate Kratom Coffee Alternative Recipe

Prep time: 3 minutes

Brew time: 15-25 minutes

Servings: 1

Ingredients

• 1 Uplift or Cacao Uplift kratom tea bag
• 1.25 cups (10 oz) water
• 1 tbsp decaf espresso powder or 1 tbsp herbal coffee alternative
• 1-2 tbsp vanilla creamer or milk of choice, more or less to taste

Directions

1. Place tea bag in an insulated thermos or double-walled mug. Boil water and pour over tea bag.
2. Cap the thermos or mug and leave the tea to steep for 15-25 minutes, then remove the tea bag.
3. Add decaf espresso powder or herbal coffee and stir until dissolved, then pour in milk or creamer.

Notes

Sweetener: If your creamer or milk is sweetened, you probably won’t need any sweeteners. But if you want your kroffee to be sweeter, we recommend using common coffee sweeteners like brown sugar or a flavored syrup. Chocolate or hazelnut work really well in this recipe.

Don’t Add Lemon: In many of our kratom tea recipes, we recommend adding a teaspoon of lemon or lime juice to strengthen your brew and add flavor. Lemon causes most types of milk (including non-dairy ones) to curdle, though, so leave it out of your kratom coffee.

Try Another Caffeine-Free Coffee Alternative to Make Mornings More Interesting

• Kratom Iced Coffee
• Decaf Mocha Kratom Latte
• Kratom Hot Chocolate

Catch new recipes on the Better Brewing Blog soon, and don’t forget to share your favorite brews and recipe requests with us @toptreetea.