When you want the experience of drinking coffee in the morning but you don't want to mix caffeine with your meds:
This "recipe" is intended for a pour-over coffee dripper, but can be modified to work with a regular coffee maker, french press, or even a tea strainer/tea ball.
1 teabag roasted dandelion root tea
½ teaspoon chicory grounds
1 coffee mug worth of boiling water
whatever you usually add to a cup of coffee
Empty the contents of the teabag into your coffee dripper, then add in the chicory grounds. Place the dripper on top of your coffee mug. Pour in the boiling water.
Technically, you can just use the chicory grounds as a direct substitute for coffee grounds, however there are a couple important reasons I recommend NOT doing that:
Chicory is very bitter. Like, two to three times as bitter as real coffee grounds.
Chicory contains a type of fiber called inulin (also found in Jerusalem artichokes) that can cause bad gas/diarrhea in some people. ½ a teaspoon is probably not enough to cause problems even if you have a sensitive stomach, but any more than that, and you might be setting yourself up for the disaster
Of course no coffee substitute tastes exactly like coffee, however both roasted dandelion root and chicory have "roasted nut" flavor notes that are ... reminiscent of coffee.
Chicory produces a beverage that's darker, and more bitter than coffee. Roasted dandelion root produces a beverage that's lighter and sweeter than coffee. When combined in the right ratio, they result in a beverage that has the same color, consistency, and bitterness level as real coffee.