Created by Daisy Newdick, a designer and graduate from the University of the Arts London, Make Weeds Great Again is a project that highlights the delightful qualities of dandelions.
According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, roughly 95 million cups of coffee are consumed per day in the UK alone. After learning of this staggering statistic, Newdick says that she yearned to present coffee drinkers with a sustainable and locally sourced alternative that didn’t require imported beans.
To do so, Newdick brought forth the old practice of consuming dandelions as coffee by building a roaster.
“Roasted dandelion root has a satisfying coffee taste and is herbal so there’s no stimulating caffeine,” nutritionist Dawn Jackson Blatner told The Huffington Post. “I’ve tried many herbal coffees from all over the world and it’s my favorite tasting one.”
“In the West, and especially in cities, we take for granted the immense distances and complex supply-chains foodstuffs travel before they reach us,” Newdick told Dezeen. “Often, the social and environmental costs of mass-produced dietary staples are enveloped by convenience.”
“This is particularly true of coffee – a drink so embedded within western culture that the exploitation of workers, contamination of water supplies, and widespread deforestation accompanying the cultivation of it, are overlooked,” added Newdick. “With increasing demand driving environmentally degrading practices, together with the impacts of the climate emergency, the future of this highly esteemed commodity is uncertain.”
