Is France Losing its Food Tradition? #shorts

History records that Voltaire, the 18th-century writer, was not generally irritable but he did experience mood swings, perhaps because of his habit of drinking up to 50 cups of coffee a day.

READ MORE: https://www.thetimes.com/article/643a27b7-40e2-4883-b614-bdd12bb15844

Today eight out of ten French people start the day with a coffee, usually black, and many also down several espressos — and some complain that it can make them tetchy or anxious.

Most French cafés also offer déca, or decaffeinated coffee, but now there is a lesser-known alternative, made by roasting cereals such as barley.

The grains, which look remarkably like coffee beans, are grown in Brittany. They can be ground and used in espresso machines or French press coffee-makers.

“A lot of our customers prefer barley coffee substitute to decaffeinated coffee, which usually contains solvents or is made with huge quantities of water, which is wasteful,” said Micaela Duarte, the owner of a fashionable café on a tree-lined boulevard in Paris’s 11th arrondissement. “I drank the coffee myself when I was pregnant and couldn’t handle real coffee. It satisfied my craving for a morning coffee with milk,” Duarte, 29, said.

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#france #food #paris