Opinions on Kentucky Coffee Tree and the taste of the brew from their roasted seeds

I have a strong interest in this species.

That it could be a local source for coffee or coffee-like drinks seems really promising to me.

There's alot of discrepancy with the quality of this product. Google kentucky coffee trees and you'll get tons of sources that tells you how far you would have to stretch your imagination to make it taste like coffee and that the settlers only tried it once and never again because they were high one day.. I feel like people just want to say whatever they can so they feel they are above wild foods. The USDA even says its super poisonous (its obviously not).

People with I'm sure no first hand experience of trying Kentucky Coffee tree coffee who put down the drink as barbaric, archaric, nasty, or what have you... I think are just really biased. So I wasn't satisfied with a first look. I wanted to see if it could be a viable source for a coffee like drink.

So I found a blog with a person who says she went with Wildman Steve Brill on walk and picked up some Kentucky Coffee seeds to make what she calls a "Nutella like paste" http://habeasbrulee.com . That led me to looking up Steve Brill's opinion on the seeds, and he says "The pod of the Kentucky coffee tree makes the world's best tasting caffeine-free coffee". http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/aug3/wildman.htm Quite a huge difference in opinion! I'd really like to believe that Steve's opinion is more accurate, because other sources say I'd be wasting my time.

Anyone have any experience with the Kentucky Coffee Tree?

Try it with out roasting it first and you will find out how super poisonous it is.

doesnt the same go for a potatoe?

Joop Corbin - swomp wrote:
doesnt the same go for a potatoe?

I think it's primarily green potatoes and pregnant women.

I'm growing them now, but so far they aren't big enough to produce pods of beans. I have tried roasted Coffee tree beans as a coffee substute before but I also added some brewed Yaupon (YO-ponn) holly (it's the only U.S. plant that produces substantial amounts of caffeine. lol, I like caffeine.)
No, it didn't taste like coffee, but was decent as a hot tea type drink.
I do recommend roasting the beans and not using them raw.

My experience was like Delilah's: it had the consistency of tea, but was sort of astringent-tasting. 

I had been making a dandelion-root-and-chicory coffee substitute until I realized I liked the chicory by itself better. (It's easier to harvest than dandelion root, too.)

Coffee beans are fairly poisonous. Two loaves of bread, made with coffee beans in place of wheat and eaten in one sitting, would probably be lethal.

For most plants, that seems to be the function that caffeine serves: they protect edible parts of themselves by adding something that suppresses appetite, causes some discomfort if more is consumed, and kills if the animal in question consumes too much.

There may be varieties of KCT, with some being a better match than others. In the book Ghosts of Evolution they talk about how people who don't know what they are getting think it's coffee.

Tastes just like coffee, Carl Mehling told me. Carl is a paleontologist and educator at the American Museum of Natural History, and he enjoys collecting and eating edible wild plants. I've served it to friends, and nobody ever suspected it was anything other than coffee. Even when I tell them, people have a hard time accepting that it's not the real thing

This is indeed an old thread, but the way the OP's view is taken, we are venturing with the KY Coffeetree too.  

It's been almost a decade and more info is now found on the internet.

I wanted to know about brewing, recipes and many who reviewed it too.  
This site does well, but has the alcohol mixed in as a drink.
https://leitesculinaria.com/102652/recipes-kentucky-coffee.html

Anyone ever roasted them?  How deep of a roast do they need?  It's limited otherwise on the web.

Seems that roasting is super easy in the new air fryers. Takes the old school pain out of the equation to get them just right and evenly.
https://foodhow.com/roasting-coffee-beans-in-air-fryer
That being said, you can, quite effectively, use it to roast coffee beans. The conditions you find in an air fryer are practically perfect for roasting coffee beans. Super-hot air circulating evenly means that you get an even roast in a relatively short time with very little burning and smoke.

As for consuming it often, this blog posting is the best I've found so far.  The roasting is an odd thing too.
https://theweedeater.net/2013/05/01/kentucky-coffee-tree-a-mammoth-discovery-2/

Has anyone blended this with Chicory?  Or did 50/50 with actual coffee to extend their inventory in the pantry?

Anyone out there with more details?  Please share.

Thanks for the idea.  I never thought of using an air fryer to roast coffee beans.  It is worth a try.

OMG you can roast beans in an air fryer? i gotta try this, and i have access to green beans rather easily lol