Weedgeek: dandelion

I’ll start this weedgeek post by saying that I know hardly anyone can pick dandelions the way I do. For most people with uniform yards of Kentucky blue-grass, extracting the yellow flower with an intact tap-root is a futile task. I’ve seen those screwdriver-like weed pickers that are sold in hardware stores described as ‘weed-breeders’ because they always break the root and any dandelion root fragment will just grow another dandelion.

Because I have no grass, I pick my dandelions with a pitch-fork.



There are plenty of reasons to celebrate the dandelion. People eat the greens and crowns. Make wine and fritters from the blossoms. But for me, dandelion-root coffee is the real prize. Because organic, fair trade coffee is pricey, it’s easy to quantify the value every scoop of dandelion coffee that I brew.

Here’s the how-to:

Pick dandelion-root by whatever means you prefer. I’ve used those ‘weed-breeder’ type pickers and gathered the top inch and a half of lawn-bound dandelion roots, but picking them from my garden with a pitch-fork has far more satisfying results.



Trim and clean the roots like any other root vegetable, and cut into matchstick sized pieces.





Spread evenly on a cookie sheet and roast/bake at 300 degrees for about 27 minutes – until the pieces are crisp like crisp-bacon. The aroma of roasting dandelion root will be like mocha.



Grind the roasted pieces in an ordinary coffee bean grinder and brew as a hot beverage in the same proportions that you brew your coffee, or blend it 50-50 with coffee as a value extender.

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This section is where I’m supposed to write about why coffee is bad. It’s grown far away so it’s a carbon-intensive product. Unless it’s shade-grown (expensive), it destroys bird habitat. Unless it’s fair-trade coffee, it exploits local labour in under developed countries. Reducing your coffee consumption is a good thing.

Maybe I’ve been a weedgeek for so long now that for me, those reasons just don’t enter into it any more. For me, being a part of the productivity of that overgrown patch of ground behind my house is so gratifying that I rarely think beyond it anymore. These plants that just grow without any effort or input from me, this value that they provide, it just makes me feel … grounded.