Line #37 Main/Uncoffee


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6	[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hot_brown_morning_potion.jpg]]]]
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8	->''"[Her son] hung over her shoulder and brought her continual mugs of strong black coffee. This beverage began to appear in the books, too. The mutineer humans drank gav, while their law-abiding enemies quaffed chvi. Spacer aliens staggered from their nav-couches to gulp down kivay; and the mystics of Meld used xfy to induce an altered state of consciousness -- although this was not generally spotted as being the same substance. And it was all immensely popular."''
9	-->-- "Nad and Dan adn Quaffy", Creator/DianaWynneJones
10
11	Every single SpeculativeFiction setting comes with a hot, mildly stimulant beverage that can take the place of coffee, and more often than not has a name that sounds very much like "coffee". Apparently coffee itself is too mundane to talk about; alternately, authors of MedievalEuropeanFantasy may want to avoid it because it wasn't common in Europe until the 17th century. Sometimes authors justify it by saying that coffee exists in-universe, but the beverage in question isn't ''really'' coffee, or is a specific form of coffee that everyone inexplicably prefers to all other forms.
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13	Can be considered a SubTrope of MostWritersAreWriters: anyone who's ever [[WritersBlockMontage struggled]] with WritersBlock will feel they owe a debt of gratitude to the drink, and a brief cameo is the least they could do. Nick Lowe, of "The Well-Tempered Plot-Device" fame, has suggested that this is a vicious cycle: you have writer's block, you drink coffee, you start thinking about coffee, and you mistake this for your writer's block clearing up.
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15	Compare CallARabbitASmeerp, the supertrope for things other than coffee. Also see [[http://www.tor.com/2009/11/15/what-is-it-with-coffee/ this]] essay by Jo Walton (which, incidentally, links back to this wiki) and KlatchianCoffee as the drinks that fall into this trope can also overlap with being an Uncoffee.
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17	See also AllBeerIsAle, BadToTheLastDrop, and DrunkOnMilk.
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19	!!Examples:
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21	[[foldercontrol]]
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23	[[folder:Comic Books]]
24	* In the ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' universe they drink Synthi-Caff, a synthetic substitute for coffee with no caffeine. Caffeine and sugar are illegal drugs in Mega-City One. However, even Synthi-Caff turns out eventually to be somewhat addictive, and is replaced by Synthi-Synthi-Caff.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Fan Works]]
28	* Tori Siikanen's ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/335663 A Real Sky]]'', a slowly progressing ''Literature/BitingTheSun'' novel[[note]]locked, Archive of Our Own members only: [[https://strangerthansf.com/reviews/siikanen-realsky.html review here]]: she says she ''will'' complete it[[/note]] addresses several things omitted by Creator/TanithLee. One is "wine of Kaf" which comes with breakfast food, or mornings after drug/alcohol indulgence.
29	* ''Fanfic/AenrhienVailiuri'' has the Romulans quaffing a highly caffeinated bitter tea. Morgan flavors the recipe used on the ''Aen'rhien'' with khellid honey and spices (making it sort of like chai), but her tactical officer Sahuel complains that it's too sweet that way. Unfortunately, "replicated just tastes fake", so she's stuck. Jaleh Khoroushi, the Iranian ops officer and TokenHuman, {{lampshades}} it, thinking that it's funny how every species in the galaxy seems to have come up with some variation of a hot beverage with stimulant properties.
30	* In ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'', the beverage is referred to as cinnamon tree bark brew or acorn brew. There's also the buzz bean brew which is the closest thing they have to KlatchianCoffee.
31	* ''Fanfic/TheNextFrontier'' runs with [[TranslationConvention "a liquid it is convenient to call coffee"]]. Bob, who is often portrayed as a NervousWreck by the fandom, [[MustHaveCaffeine gets through a worrying amount.]]
32	* The ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''/''Franchise/StarWars'' crossover "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515959 There's Coffee in That Galaxy (Far, Far Away)]]" by thisbluespirit differentiates between ''Star Wars'''s uncoffees (see below). Vine-coffee is basically "real" coffee, caf is the cheap and nasty artificial version, and coffeine and stimcaf appear to be somewhere in the middle.
33	* The ''Fanfic/TriptychContinuum'' features wake-up juice as the stimulant drink of pony choice. Unusually, this beverage explicitly exists alongside tea and coffee. (The latter is indicated to be, at best, an acquired taste for most ponies (and a near-addiction for Cadance).) Little is known about the beverage other than its color (creamy yellow), the fact that it's plant-based -- and those same plants, if raised in the vicinity of wild magic, are the source of the FantasticDrug Exam Crystal.
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36	[[folder:Film -- Animation]]
37	* The Bettermans wake Guy up ''WesternAnimation/TheCroodsANewAge'' by offering him a cup of "Fresh bitter bean juice".
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Literature]]
41	* Fleegix, a watery, hot chocolate-like beverage that is made from the berries of the four zitzkis bushes that grow only on the summit of the mountain-city of Lenny in the existential plane of Waka-Waka and drunk out of ceremonial Lucite-handled thermal cups, shows up a lot in the sillier Creator/DanielPinkwater novels. Which is to say most of them. Debuted in ''Literature/AlanMendelsohnTheBoyFromMars''.
42	* In ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'', one nurse is told to go relax and have a cup of caffeine solution.
43	* Creator/TrudiCanavan has "raka" for coffee (drunk by slum dwellers) and "sumi" for tea (staple for the upper classes).
44	* The ''Literature/ChanurNovels'' by Creator/CJCherryh have the cat-like aliens drinking ''gfi''.
45	* In the ''Literature/{{Chronicles of the Warlands}}'' trilogy, it's kavage.
46	* In the ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' books, the title character claims to have once fought his way single-handed through a continent full of Orks just to get a bowl of Tanna Tea! But he will also drink "Re-caff" as well, which is recycled caffeine.
47	* In Creator/ElizabethMoon's ''Literature/TheDeedOfPaksenarrion'' series, the stimulant drink of choice is "sib". Sib is a mixture of bitter herbs steeped in water, sort of like tea - except tea exists in the setting as well, and sib is different (tea is a luxury good of limited availability, sib is included in mercenaries' rations).
48	** There is also "asar", which might be a candidate, but apart from that it is served hot, has stimulating and restorative properties attributed to it and that it is given to sentries on outdoor duty, nothing is known.
49	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''
50	** Lack of real coffee becomes a real difficulty in ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' thanks to a vampire using it as his [[AddictionDisplacement substitute for blood]]. The squad makes some out of acorns for him (which soldiers did often in RealLife, minus the necessity for keeping vampires on the wagon).
51	** In ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Carrot orders a cup of acorn coffee at Gilmet's dwarf deli.
52	** In ''Literature/{{Thud}}'', trolls have something they call coffee, although since they're SiliconBasedLife, it's "a molten chemical stew with rust sprinkled on the top".
53	* In the ''Literature/DocSidhe'' novels by Creator/AaronAllston, the fair world equivalent of coffee is a bitter chocolate based drink named ''xioc'' (or, with milk, "''xioc au lait''"...). It takes some getting used to for the characters originally from Earth.
54	* In the ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'' series, coffee does exist, but most of the characters drink the specific variant of it known as ''klava'' (which is filtered through eggshells), and served with honey and cream. Vlad is annoyed that Dragaerans traditionally serve it in a glass rather than a mug, because it burns his hands. It's probably based on Hungarian egg coffee, because the Easterner culture is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to medieval Hungary.
55	* The people in ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' drink "tarbean tea". There is also a drink called "Kefre" which is probably even more coffee-like than tarbean tea.
56	* In the ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'' books, everybody drinks klah, a drink brewed from the bark of a native tree, which is neither coffee or tea.[[note]]Which is stated to taste more like "cinnamony chocolate, with a touch of hazelnut and coffee."[[/note]] It's stated in ''Dragonsdawn'' that the first two things human colonists always do on a new world are 1. find something that can be turned into booze and 2. find something that can be turned into a caffeinated drink. The second one is necessary because coffee plants won't grow successfully on any planet but Earth for some reason. And all the tea plants were consumed by Thread on Pern, in the First Fall.
57	* In ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' they drink coffee flavored with [[SpiceOfLife melange]], which makes perfect sense for [[SpaceJews Space Arabs]].[[note]]Spices, particularly cardamom, are popular additives to coffee in Arab countries.[[/note]] Granted, this isn't entirely by choice, since melange is everywhere on Arrakis anyway, to the point that everyone on Arrakis is addicted to it.
58	* In the ''Literature/{{Eldraeverse}}'' the most common drink is ''esklav'', which is brewed from the bean of a shrub with no exact Earth analog, but which tastes quite close to coffee, although not so bitter and with hints of cinnamon and chocolate in its flavor. (Coffee itself also exists, but it's a minority taste; ''esklav'' is the drink that the world runs on.)
59	* ''Literature/{{Emberverse}}'': After technology (and, consequently, society) breaks down, real coffee becomes a rare and incredibly expensive luxury in most of North America. Several substitutes become fashionable among the younger generation, most notably chicory, which comes to be called "coffee" in some places. But many characters old enough to remember life before the Change eschew it, saying that it tastes just barely enough like the real thing to make them miss it all the more.
60	* Creator/AnneBishop's ''Ephemera'' novels, in what is probably the least-intrusive possible version of this trope, have ''koffee''. It is pretty explicitly just coffee, brewed from roasted beans, but in that universe it's a "black market" item that comes from a far away Landscape.
61	* Creator/FritzLeiber's ''Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser'' enjoy the occasional cup of hot gahveh.
62	* In ''Literature/{{Fairest}}'' by Gail Carson Levine, the citizens of Ayortha enjoy a hot molasses beverage called ostumo.
63	* Tah in Creator/DorisEgan's ''Literature/TheGateOfIvory'' trilogy. Specifically pointed out to be mildly addictive. In the second book, the outlaws decide to earn themselves a pardon by stealing all the tah they can get a hold of, thus annoying the population and government officials when they can't get their fixes.
64	* ''Literature/TheGeneralSeries'': Raj Whitehall reflects that the Gubierno Civil's High Command can't function without "kave" from distant Azania.
65	* The ''Literature/{{Gor}}'' books have "the black wine of Thentis". When the Earth-born protagonists taste it for the first time, their reaction boils down to "Wow, this is coffee!"
66	* ''Literature/TheHelmsmanSaga'' features cvcesse', defined as "A hot, sticky liquid with natural stimulants and a pleasant, toasted taste consumed at all hours [[note]]but especially good in the morning[[/note]] throughout the Known Universe. Usually served in mugs or cups."
67	* The ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series usually sticks to "strong tea", but occasionally mentions a stimulant drink called "bitteralm". That one's particularly strange, because it sounds like a reference to "bitter almond", which is a real-world nut that contains cyanide and must be carefully treated before it's edible.
68	** In the ''Mage Storms'' trilogy, when Karal is suffering from homesickness one of the things he misses about being in Karse is "a good, strong cup of ''kava''". There's also an Imperial beverage (brought to Hardorn by Tremane's forces) called ''kav'', which is specifically noted as being good at waking drinkers up.
69	* Malak in Creator/RobinMcKinley's Damar books, ''Literature/TheHeroAndTheCrown'' and ''Literature/TheBlueSword'', is Damarian uncoffee.
70	* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxyTrilogy'':
71	** Arthur spends a good chunk of ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'' trying to get a cup of tea out of the drink dispensers aboard the Heart of Gold, but they only provide Advanced Tea Substitute, a drink that tastes "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea."
72	** ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse'' parodies this effect, but instead of coffee, it's the alcoholic drink "gin and tonic" that gets this treatment, showing up instead as "jynnan tonnyx", a [[ThatSoundsFamiliar suspiciously similar name]] which the Guide itself immediately lampshades (apparently every culture has come up with some drink with a name that sounds like "gin and tonic", all of them tasting different). In light of this, one wonders whether Douglas Adams drank a lot while writing... (Although a jynnan tonnyx actually tastes like a whisky and soda.)
73	* In ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'', the Navy typically uses burnt bread (with lots of sugar to mask the taste) once the actual coffee runs out.
74	* The humans in Creator/JamesPHogan's ''Literature/TheImmortalityOption'' drink coffee. The Borijans--the six-limbed birdlike aliens responsible for the [[MechanicalEvolution mechanical biosphere]] on Titan--on the other hand drink (or rather drank, as their planet was destroyed half a million years ago) ''graff'', made from a kind of dried seaweed. Justified in that they're six-limbed birdlike aliens from a planet that was destroyed half a million years ago.
75	* The futuristic ''Literature/InDeath'' series features a synthesized caffeine drink, since deforestation has rendered South America unsuitable for growing coffee beans.
76	* In ''Literature/TheJournalEntries'', a "Sendar equivalent of coffee" is popular under the short name "kfi".
77	* In ''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' by Max Frei, everyone in the parallel universe of Echo drinks ''kamra''. It takes a weak, but really specific magic to make it just right and one of the {{Running Gag}}s in the series is the protagonist's seemingly utter inability to make kamra that can be consumed by people with functional taste buds (he even considers using it to intimidate criminals at interrogations but decides that it's against the law). It takes an intervention of a powerful wizard to teach him to make kamra properly and later on, he cheats by stealing real coffee from our world.
78	* In ''Literature/TheLastRune'', residents of Eldh drink a stimulant brew called maddok (although the nobility tend to consider it embarrassingly common). Travis mistakes it for coffee at first, but revises his assessment the first time he tastes it; Grace sticks to the comparison.
79	* In Randall Garrett's ''Literature/LordDarcy'' books, coffee is called "caffe" in the Anglo-French Empire. A passing comment in one of the Kurland novels suggests that caffe might actually be ''hot chocolate'' rather than coffee.
80	* In the ''Literature/{{Mageworlds}}'' series, the Mageworlds have a drink called "uffa", and the Adeptworlds have a drink called "cha'a" (which is probably tea, because ''chá'' is how the word for tea is pronounced in some Chinese dialects, and many other languages' words for tea are derived from this).
81	* After he runs out of real coffee, [[{{Determinator}} Mark]] [[MacGyvering Watney]] in ''Literature/TheMartian'' brews one of these diluting caffeine pills in hot water.
82	* In ''[[Literature/KushielsLegacy Naamah's Kiss]]'' by Creator/JacquelineCarey, it is tremendously fashionable for D'Angeline nobles to drink ''khav'', which is described as a bitter drink from Jebe-Barkal (the FantasyCounterpartCulture of Ethiopia.)
83	* A meta example in Creator/DianaWynneJones's short story "Nad and Dan adn Quaffy". The story is about a science-fiction author with a coffee addiction who tends to write all her main characters as having an addiction to some kind of SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute. The ''quaffy'' in the title is one of them, but there is also ''gav'', ''chvi'', ''kivay'', ''xfy'', etc. This gets to the point were she starts calling coffee itself ''chofiy'' or ''c'phee'' by mistake.
84	* In Brent Weeks' ''Literature/TheNightAngelTrilogy'', everyone in Cenaria drinks Ootai, and in the Satrapies of his Lightbringer series, they drink kopi.
85	%% * [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''Literature/{{Phenomena}}'', although in a way one won't expect until one's there.
86	* Shaddi in ''Literature/ReflectionsOfEterna'' fulfills the same role as coffee. It was even imported to Talig from the FantasyCounterpartCulture of Arabia.
87	* The Sand Kingdom in ''Literature/RestaurantToAnotherWorld'' has a drink called cafa which can be drank hot or cooled with magic. The rest of the other world have never heard of coffee, and visitors to the restaurant refer to it as a kind of tea.
88	* ''Literature/{{Safehold}}'': Later in the novels, cherrybean tea makes an appearance. Readers who are at all familiar with coffee need neither the InUniverse confirmation from Merlin nor the glossary entry to tell what this would have been called on Old Earth.
89	* Coffee in Lisanne Norman's ''Literature/SholanAlliance'' series acts as an intoxicant to the Sholans, who drink a much milder version called ''c'shar''.
90	* In ''Literature/SongInTheSilence,'' people drink chelan. It is said to taste a bit (to us) like yerba mate, with cinnamon.
91	* ''Literature/StarDarlings'' has Zing, a "traditional Starling breakfast drink that can be enjoyed hot or iced."
92	* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' has "caf tea", or "coffeine" or "caffa" or just "caf", depending on the writer, since most of them don't like or haven't bothered looking up the words already coined. It's a big universe and these all might be distinct beverages or brands, but even so. And [[Literature/XWingSeries oratay]], which is apparently rare. Averted with the highly exotic drink ''hot chocolate''. One ''Jedi Apprentice'' book mentions "kopi tea", which is sorta funny when you know [[BilingualBonus "kopi" is Malay for "coffee"]].
93	* In the ''Literature/{{Sten}}'' series, people drink "caff".
94	* In ''The Telling'', people drink a beverage called ''akakafi'', which is described as "bittersweet, black...containing a remarkable mixture of alkaloids, stimulants, and depressants". The most common brand (owned by the government) is even called Starbrew.
95	* Played with in the German SF novel ''Der Verbannte von Asyth'' ("The Exile from Asyth") -- the alien culture the title character and his companion-in-exile hail from has a drink that must be chemically virtually identical to Earth coffee judging by the latter's effects on one of them, but to them it acts as an [[AlienCatnip addictive intoxicant]]. Presumably 'klukol' would make an acceptable coffee substitute for Earthlings in turn.
96	* The Seanchan of ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' have a hot drink called kaf, which is quite likely coffee.
97	* In the novella ''With Delicate Mad Hands'' by Creator/JamesTiptreeJr, having made a kind of controlled crash landing on the Pigworld (actually a brown dwarf star) she's been aiming for since childhood, Carol settles down to communicate with the residents (she can't leave her ship due to high levels of radiation) with a "breakfast bar and self-heating kaffy". This could be the real thing or a coffee substitute (since [[DividedStatesOfAmerica Earth's recovering]] from [[AfterTheEnd several apocalyptic wars]]).
98	* The protagonist of ''[[Literature/WizBiz Wizard's Bane]]'' craves [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolt_cola Jolt Cola]] rather than coffee, but eventually discovers that a foul-tasting drink called "blackmoss tea" works just as well. In the sequel hired Earth programmers request coffee or tea, but accept blackmoss tea too.
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder:Live-Action TV ]]
102	* ''Series/BarneyMiller'': Wojo takes Dietrich's suggestion for a substitute in order to save water during a drought: hot Dr. Pepper. Barney is ''not'' pleased.
103	** Drinking hot Dr Pepper was an actual (short-lived) fad at the time. There were instructions on the can and everything! (It came back into the public consciousness in late 2023, when some Internet creators found out about it and had to try it. Max Miller of ''[[WebVideo/TastingHistoryWithMaxMiller Tasting History]]'' and Greg Titian of ''WebVideo/HowToDrink'' both sampled the stuff around December 2023.)
104	* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': The Architects have two coffee pots in the office: one regular, one ''antimatter''.
105	* The crew of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' pretty much relies on [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Raktajino "raktajino,"]] sometimes explicitly referred to as Klingon coffee, to get through their day, even though none of them are Klingon. Indeed at least one of them only learned of Klingons recently, and the only Klingon in the main cast doesn't actually drink the stuff.
106	** O'Brien subverts this by preferring regular coffee, specifically, "Jamaican Blend, double strong, double sweet". Julian seems to prefer Tarkelean tea when he's not working.
107	** A guest star who was a longtime prisoner of the Cardassians notes that they don't drink coffee (or raktajino), but hot fish juice. Yuck.
108	** In the ''Literature/StarTrekVanguard'' book ''Precipice'', Diego Reyes tries raktajino, and quickly concludes that it's ''nothing'' like coffee.
109	*** In case anyone's interested, the full story of raktajino is apparently this (taken from one of the works expanding on the Klingon dictionary):
110	---->''Klingons have developed a way to make coffee particularly strong, both in flavour and in its effect as a stimulant, and it's a very popular beverage. As a rule, coffee's consumed plain -- that is, black -- but some Klingons prefer to mix other ingredients in with the coffee. If some kind of liquor is added to the coffee, the drink is called ra'taj. It’s said that the drink was originally nicknamed ra'wI' taj ("commander's knife," suggestive of its potency), and that the name was shortened over time. In any event, ra'taj became one of the few Klingon foods to gain popularity outside the Empire, though in an altered form. Instead of containing liquor, as does the genuine Klingon ra'taj, the "export" version (which came to be pronounced in Federation Standard) consists of strong Klingon coffee plus a nutlike flavouring. Eventually, a new fashion developed -- adding cream -- and with this innovation came yet another name, modelled after the name of another popular coffee drink, cappuccino. Raktajino is now served hot or iced, with or without extra cream, and with or without the rind of some fruit to add even more flavour. Though it's sometimes called "Klingon coffee," it’s quite different from both plain coffee and the alcoholic ra'taj.''
111	** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS05E06TrialsAndTribbleations Troubles and Tribble-ations]]", Odo (in disguise) distractedly asks the waitress for raktajino and then clarifies that it is Klingon coffee. She replies that they don't serve Klingon food and drink, and that he's the ''second'' person to ask for it, cluing him in that fugitive Darvin has passed that way.
112	* According to ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the Vulcans have a kind of "un-tea". Sarek's wife Perrin mentions, over a cup of mint tea with Picard, that the Vulcans also have "something they call mint", which apparently isn't as good as real Earth mint, or at least not quite the same.
113	* The crew of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' try on several occasions to find native substitutes for coffee, none of which come even remotely close. Given the captain's raging case of MustHaveCaffeine (and the poor quality of replicated coffee), this became a problem on more than one occasion...
114	[[/folder]]
115
116	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
117	* Even [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy the Clans]] of ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' are not immune to the lure of coffee-like products, drinking a utilitarian stimulant known only as "caff," heavily implied to be nothing more than Vietnam-era Army coffee in effect and flavor. And no, they don't believe in sugar or creamer, [[TheSpartanWay this godawful stuff is taken straight black because of their obsession with efficiency and avoiding decadent luxuries to produce better warriors]]. It's telling that a Clan warrior drinking Inner Sphere brewed commercial coffee (think Starbucks) had no idea what he was drinking and had to ask.
118	* A ''Magazine/{{Dragon}}'' article about food and drink in the ''TabletopGame/{{Greyhawk}}'' setting mentions kaffet, a bean grown in the Baklunish Basin (Oerth's FantasyCounterpartCulture Arabia) and made into a "bitter tonic" that promotes wakefulness.
119	* The ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' universe has "soycaf". Because everything on the whole planet that is available to the working classes will be [[FutureFoodIsArtificial made of soy]] in the future, even [[FridgeLogic things that would grow better in their respective climates]].
120	** This is later {{Ret Con}}ned somewhat. There is also algae, and small shrimp grown in giant factory farms to add more variety. Real food (not made from soy) is eaten daily by middle class and higher. Soy food is the equivalent to modern-day processed foods. Only the really poor (And Shadowrunners needing to buy ammo) buy unprocessed soy.
121	* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' uses a wide variety of variants on coffee, including straight caffeine and recaff, among others.
122	** A piece of ''Warhammer 40k'' fluff had the Imperial Guard drinking "Recycled caffeine" at an outpost before they were massacred by the Tyranids (again). Probably as much a lampshading of their status as professional cannon fodder and terrible equipment as an example of this trope. It isn't stated what it is, but given this is from the administration that gave you '[[Film/SoylentGreen Soylens Viridians]]' it's probably better not to ask.
123	** Some fluff makes Recaf closer to being tea, such as in ''TabletopGame/OnlyWar'', which describes it as being made from crushed and brewed leaves. [[note]] The core rulebook spells it with only one F. [[/note]]
124	** Caffeine is classified as a 'Stimm', Adrenaline shots are also Stimms.
125	** The Valhallans drink tanna, essentially [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chifir%27 chifir]] ([[BadToTheLastDrop the kind of tea drunk in Russian prisons]]).
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127
128	[[folder:Video Games]]
129	* ''VideoGame/DeadInVinland'', set in the [[WordOfGod tenth century]], has a couple of different ones. Wormwood Potions subtract 20 points from a character's [[MultipleLifeBars Fatigue bar]] and there's a reference to starting the day with one. Kola nuts (which do contain caffeine in RealLife) are also available, and can be brewed into a Kola Potion which subtracts 10 points each of Fatigue and Depression and looks [[PlayedForLaughs suspiciously like a Coca-Cola bottle]]. While one member of the PlayerParty ''is'' from West Africa, where kola nuts grow, the game's IslandOfMystery setting is [[WordOfGod somewhere near Newfoundland]]... but you'll occasionally find kola nuts [[FridgeLogic growing in the wild]] there anyway. But then, [[AWizardDidIt it's a magical island]] with [[BellisariosMaxim much weirder things]] [[MST3KMantra going on]]...
130	* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' has "Black Coffee" from ''Honest Hearts''... made of Coyote tobacco chew (leaves) and honey mesquite pods. It's stimulating at the least as it makes you smarter (+2 to Intelligence) but less quick on your feet (-1 Agility) for a minute. One can only assume it tastes better than [[CordonBleughChef "Bloatfly sliders" made of fly meat and prickly pear fruit]].
131	* In ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1984'' game, asking the food replicator for tea caused it to give you a healthy and nutritious tea substitute.[[note]]This does have an in-game use, functioning as the Brownian motion generator for the Improbability Drive.[[/note]] You ''really'' have to work in order to get real tea out of the dang thing.
132	** Narrowly averted in [[Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1978 the original radio drama]], where the computer ''offers'' Arthur the Uncoffee,[[note]]almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea[[/note]] and he asks it to consider the possibility that he might actually '''want''' the unhealthy, non-nutritious version. The computer does so, but this takes up so much computing power that the group almost can't avoid the incoming nuclear missiles. [[BrickJoke And after the attack, it spits out a cup of real tea.]]
133	* ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'': Blep tea, which gets its name from how bitter it is, but is still quite popular as a stimulant. It also has an AlienCatnip side to it, as an event in which a more potent variant is researched has the PlayerCharacter hesitate between giving it to someone who prefers the stimulant aspect and someone who prefers the drug-like aspect.
134	* Parodied in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'''s "Guano coffee cup" item, where the description says "Wait, what's 'coffee'?"
135	** There's also a one-of-a-kind coffee mug that references this. What takes the cake, though, is a consumable item that explicitly is coffee, which had to be revised ''twice'' once the creators realized they had stricken coffee from existence.
136	* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' has Starbeans Cafe, where one can sample various blends of... bean juice. (Although, strictly speaking, coffee ''is'' bean juice.)
137	* The MMORPG ''VideoGame/TabulaRasa'' had Coffite, a brew produced by the Cormans and billed by the AFS Post Exchange as "something like coffee that's better than no coffee at all." The fall of Earth to the Bane forced surviving humans to find substitutes for most of their food and drink; most AFS soldiers (both roleplayers and [=NPCs=]) found it to be a poor substitute.
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140	[[folder:Webcomics]]
141	* Florence of ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' enjoys drinking coffee even though it is mildly poisonous to her. A friend makes her a coffee substitute that smells like a frightened rabbit to her, but turns out to taste so bad that she ends up using coffee to scald the taste off her tongue, though it does do the job of waking her up like coffee, causing her to wonder how something could be so wrong and right at the same time.
142	* In ''Webcomic/NotWhatIWas'' real coffee is too expensive for most of the population, who make do with caffeinated chicory substitute or "[[https://twitter.com/NWIW_Comic/status/1207162372135063553/photo/1 chi-caf]]".
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145	[[folder:Web Original]]
146	* In ''Website/{{Neopets}}'', a beverage called "borovan" was preferred among Neopians, obtained by getting asparagus -- the TrademarkFavoriteFood of former site cofounder and former owner, Adam "Number Six" Powell, so it tended to show up often in the site's early days -- and [[BizarreTasteInFood mixing it with hot chocolate]] in the Mystery Island Cooking Pot. While in later years it [[ExpyCoexistence coexists with coffee and tea]], it's still what comes up most often out of the three [[TheArtifact as a nod to Neopia's history]].
147	* Chapter eleven of the {{Xenofiction}} WebSerialNovel ''[[http://hyperlit.adorobooks.com/treetops/?p=1 Treetops]]'' describes a beverage called ''"Chark"'', which is compared to both coffee and tea, and "other drinks that enjoy the same semi-cult status". It is a hot beverage made from boiled pollen that stimulates the spine and base brain tissue, increasing [[PsychicPowers available psychic energy]] and inducing a feeling of well-being. The more physical effects are likened to [[FantasticArousal an affectionate stroke on the ear.]]
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150	[[folder:Western Animation ]]
151	* In ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'', [[GeniusDitz Claudia]] hands [[NobleTopEnforcer her brother]] a dose of what she calls "hot brown morning potion" when he's tired. Based on his reaction, it would appear to have been a shot of espresso or the equivalent thereof.
152	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' had an episode where Mrs. Krabappel offers Superintendent Chalmers a cup of "coffee-flavoured beverine"; Chalmers takes his "grey, with creamium". Presumably it's the same concept as the malk ("now with Vitamin R!") found in another episode: a poor, low-cost substitute that's all the school can afford.
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155	[[folder:Real Life]]
156	* There are a wide variety of variations to or replacements for coffee as any visitor to Starbucks knows. See Website/TheOtherWiki's list of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute coffee substitutes]] for some examples.
157	* During UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, Lincoln cut off the South's access to coffee supplies (coffee had to be imported by ship, and practically the first thing the Union did in the war was establish a general blockade of the South and its ports). Desperate, the Confederacy tried to make substitutes of anything that they could get their hands on. This included faux-coffee made from chicory, roasted dandelion root, sweet potato, and toasted grain, best of all. Worst of all being ''acorns''.
158	** Mirrored by the North's lack of tobacco, and resulting in scouting parties from both armies being as likely to trade with one another as to fight.
159	** Chicory caught on, after a fashion; it's still an ingredient, though now mixed with real coffee. Coffee-chicory blends are popular in Louisiana, and especially popular in UsefulNotes/NewOrleans. To this day, Café du Monde serves New Orleans-style chicory coffee with its famous beignets. Perhaps significantly, New Orleans was captured by the Union relatively early in the war (in the spring of 1862), and so really only ever had to do with coffee substitutes as something to stretch supplies of real coffee (which did have a hard time getting to New Orleans during the war even though it was in Union hands) rather than having to drink completely uncaffeinated sweet-potato/toasted grain/etc. "coffee" for the better part of four years.
160	* Eastern European countries still drink grain coffee. There were all sorts of mock-foreign products, including faux chocolate. One of the party leaders advocated abandoning lemons in favor of sauerkraut - which has roughly the same vitamin C content. He changed his mind, when his wife prepared him some tea... with sauerkraut.
161	* During the [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober Russian Civil War]], the exact same coffee substitutes were in use. There was even a brand of acorn coffee, "Zheludin" (lit. Acornine) that was marketed even after the hurdle was cleared, as a "healthy" coffee.
162	* Historically Russians are [[UsefulNotes/TeaAndTeaCulture much bigger on tea]], though (tea is right up there with [[VodkaDrunkenski vodka]] as far as how much Russians drink it). Reds ending up with all the stock from the pre-Revolutionary tea trade is often credited as one reasons for their victory, as they were able to introduce a strict dry law, giving out the tea in consolation, which lead to better morale and better health (as tea required boiling the water) in their troops.
163	* Due USA's economical block on Chile during Salvador Allende's presidential period, coffee became scant and very expensive, so an alternative made from barley was made, and even when coffee became cheap and easy to find again, the popularity of barley coffee substitute still prevails to date, specially among kids who can't drink caffeine.
164	* In The Blitz, Britons had a similar problem with obtaining coffee (although [[TeaLovingBrits other drinks]] were more of a problem [[SeriousBusiness when they became unavailable]]). This may be the reason for the popularity of instant coffee in present day Britain.
165	* During World War II, most of the Continental Europe had to do without coffee or tobacco as these countries were cut off from their sources. Many substitutes for coffee were developed, with varying success while coffee (and tobacco) smuggling was an extremely profitable business. Allied [=POWs=], especially Americans, who had access to real coffee and tobacco from Red Cross packages they received, often used them to bribe German guards.
166	* Having to rely on coffee substitutes (called ''[[CaptainErsatz Ersatzkaffee]]'' or ''[[InherentlyFunnyWords Muckefuck]]'') was also necessary in UsefulNotes/WestGermany during the post-[[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII war]] era, as well as in UsefulNotes/EastGermany during TheSeventies. The "seventies coffee crisis" (which did affect the West, but mostly ended up producing higher prices or quality compromises[[note]]Usually by adjusting the ratio of arabica to robusta beans to favor the cheaper but harsher and blander robusta[[/note]] rather than scarcity per se) resulted from a bad harvest in Brasil and the GDR's notorious lack of hard currency with which to buy coffee. First they tried substituting coffee with the aforementioned products and then they invested in Vietnam, which at that time had an infant coffee industry at best, causing it to take a path towards the second biggest coffee producer in the world today, mostly focused on mass producing cheap varieties. To this day Germany and Vietnam enjoy surprisingly strong relations and ties of all sorts for two countries so far apart without a history of colonialism or a shared language between them.
167	* UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat liked [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot/FoodAndDrink coffee boiled in champagne]]. Given that he was a great conqueror, you might have expected him to drink [[SymbolicBlood red]] [[AGlassOfChianti wine]], or as a German to drink beer, but you would be forgetting his intense love for all things modern and [[ForeignCultureFetish French]]--and in 18th-century Europe, coffee was modern and champagne was (of course) French.
168	** As it happens, he did in fact like wine, red and white (particularly if it was French), but beer? Despite his [[{{Hypocrite}} ban on coffee]] (to commoners) to protect the brewing industry, the man never liked the stuff himself...it was [[HypocriticalHumor too]] ''[[CulturalCringe German]]''.
169	* During the increasing tensions leading to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution, many colonists boycotted tea in protest of the British tax on it. Since tea was (at the time) a bit easier to come by than coffee, that's what they were used to...so they experimented with as many substitutes as possible, brewing "tea" from the barks and leaves of native trees and plants.
170	* For a while in the late [=1800s=], caffeine became heavily demonized by Christian holiness movements popular in the day as unhealthy, which resulted in the marketing of quite a few coffee and tea substitutes as a more wholesome substitute, some of these still remain, e.g. Inka, Camp, and most famously, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postum Postum]] (one of those roasted grain beverages; and yes, that's "Post" as in "Post Cereal"), which was and still is hugely popular among Mormons and Seventh-Day Adventists (it's still being made by a smaller firm that mostly markets to the aforementioned). It was also given to children considered too young for coffee. Apparently, Postum had the advantage that it mostly tasted like its own drink, rather than a pale imitation of real coffee.
171	* [[MetaphoricallyTrue From a certain point of view]], many people have been known to sarcastically describe Decaf as “[[NoTrueScotsman not real coffee]],” considering it omits what [[MustHaveCaffeine to many coffee drinkers]] is a key component of the experience.
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Context Main / Uncoffee