There is a Goddess of the Sun at our feet, here to heal the land and everyone who lives near her. Dandelion is among the first of the lovely plant people to show their face in the spring. Goddess of the Honey Bee. Jester, and antidote to civilization. She has followed the devastating path of colonialism and cleared lands from her Eurasian homeland to all corners of the world. Healing and bringing joy and balance to the raped over land, and bringing balance and function to our bodies in the same way. Enabling our bodies to both absorb food and eliminate toxins with ease. Specifically Dandelion heals our liver, kidneys and bladder. She nourishes us and the land with bio-available forms of minerals like vitamin-A, C, iron, calcium and even a surprising amount of protein.
She defies monoculturalism more heroically then any human ever has, and smiles as she breezes through our imposed borders. She feeds us, brightens our days, heals us, gets us drunk on her spring wine and sets us at ease with the simple things in life. She can bring us ecstasy and then soothe us with her rich caramel smokie tones as Dandelion coffee. At workshops, many of our participants thought it was an excellent espresso until Megan let them know it was roasted dandelion root coffee.
Here’s Megan’s Recipe:
I started with 1 pound (12oz) of fresh, washed dandelion root. It doesn’t matter what size the roots are, and I wash them to get the dirt off. So much of their medicine is in the outer layer of the root, so don’t peel them or scrub them silly.
I put them on a baking tray in the oven at 300ºF for 2 hours, or until they look charred all the way through, and smell caramelized. The pound of fresh roots shrinks down to about 7oz. You will see some of the sugars have seeped out onto the baking tray, I scrap this off and add it in with the roots.
Grind them up. I use a coffee grinder, it works well with the roasted roots.
Let them cool. Once they’re cool, you can make your coffee! You can add some to steep in a bodum, or percolator, but I like to simmer it in a pot, I feel this gets more of the medicine from the roots.
I add 1 tablespoon for 2 cups of water, but if you like a really dense cup, just add one cup of water.
Strain and serve with milk and sugar, if you like, or have it black. You can add more water to get another round of coffee. It will be a bit weaker, but still tasty.
For warmer days, I make a ‘slushie’. After straining the coffee, I add a bit of maple syrup to taste (or sugar), mix it in and pour the coffee into a glass pyrex tray, and put it in the freezer. Every half hour or so, go in and stir it to keep it from freezing solid, and you’ll have a fantastic dandelion coffee slushie. If it does freeze more solid, then you can break it up in a high powered blender.
Enjoy!