Coffee!

[JennyHallu]

Originally Posted by Fordim

So called replacement "coffees" were only invented in WWII when the real thing became scarce -- so when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in the 30s, coffee meant, well, coffee.

I'm sorry dear, but I'm afraid that isn't true. Chicory has been used as a replacement for coffee since the Middle Ages (see quote below). It was commonly used on the American prairie, and my great-grandparents drank it during the depression.

Root chicory (Chicorium intybus var. sativum) has been grown since the [color=#0000ff]Middle Ages[/color] as a [color=#0000ff]coffee substitute[/color]. Around 1970 it was found that the root contains up to 20% [color=#0000ff]inulin[/color]. Since then, new strains have been created, giving root chicory an inulin content comparable to that of sugar beet (around 600 dt/ha). Inulin is mainly present in the plant family [color=#0000ff]Asteraceae[/color] as a storage carbohydrate (for example [color=#0000ff]Jerusalem artichoke[/color], [color=#0000ff]dahlia[/color], etc.). It is used as a sweetener in the food industry (with a sweetening power 30% higher than that of sucrose). Inulin can be converted to fructose and glucose through [color=#0000ff]hydrolysis[/color].

As for tea, I do not understand the general disdain for alternative teas. Chamomile, Sassafras, any of a million plants produce delightful teas, and I don't see that hobbits would be so far above availing themselves of them.

And lastly, to sugar. I agree that cane sugar would be an extremely difficult thing for hobbits to procure, short of Bethberry's trade scenario. But Tolkien was a philologist, not a horticulturalist. Sugar beets had been developed in Europe a hundred years and more before our hero's birth: they would have been a source of sugar Tolkien would have been familiar and comfortable with. I don't think its reasonable to assume that hobbits could not have grown them.