Coffee alternatives: Start-ups claim beanless coffee more ethical

Atomo, which launched in 2019, is currently sold in more than 70 coffee shops in the US.

Coffee shop chain Bluestone Lane added it to the menu at all its locations in early August, including in San Francisco.

Since June, Atomo has also been selling through its website a blend of beanless and conventional coffee intended for home brewing that I have also purchased to try.

It currently costs slightly more than premium conventional coffee. For example, to make my expresso with Atomo adds on 50 cents (38p).

Atomo’s ingredients aren’t particularly high tech: date seeds, ramón seeds, sunflower seed extract, fructose, pea protein, millet, lemon, guava, fenugreek seeds, caffeine and baking soda.

Things begin with waste date seeds or pits. Rock hard, they are granulated then infused with a secret marinade of ingredients from the list above, before being roasted to create new flavours, aromas and compounds.

Further ingredients then finish things off. Atomo’s caffeine is sourced from green tea decaffeination, though synthetically-made caffeine is also used to provide beanless coffee’s kick.

Atomo operates a facility in southern California, where the date pits are cleaned and washed, and a second facility in Seattle where the manufacturing takes place. Current capacity is four million pounds a year, which Mr Kleitsch describes as a “rounding error” in the world of coffee production: Starbucks buys about 800 million.

As for trying Atomo, both the coffee shop expresso and the brew-at-home version tasted close enough to good coffee for me. Perhaps luckily for these companies, coffee can have many different undertones.