Some country had to legislate first, and it was Great Britain, under pressure from the Lancet. The medical journal had published analyses naming the tradesmen: it was no longer a question of hygiene, it was a public scandal.

Three laws followed one another in fifteen years, which is already an admission: the first two did not settle the question.

• 1860The Adulteration of Food or Drink Act.
• 1872The Adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs Act.
• 1875The Sale of Food and Drugs Act, which repeals the two previous ones and, above all, organizes public analysis.

It is this last point that changes everything. A ban without an official laboratory remains a wish, since nobody has the standing to say what the packet contains.

Ukers notes what was used before this law as fillers in British coffee: cocoa husks, acorns, figs and lupins.

France followed on August 1^st, 1905, with the law on the suppression of fraud in the sale of goods and the adulteration of foodstuffs. It was born not of coffee but of wine scandals, and it punishes deception about the nature, the substantial qualities, the composition and the origin.

This law is still the backbone of French law in the matter. The denominations of coffee are today set by decree 91-340 of April 3, 1991, and decree 2001-977 transposes the European directive on extracts.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sale_of_Food_and_Drugs_Act_1875 and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wakley, accessed September 7, 2026; Ukers 1922, p. 404; ICO, document ICC-134-1, September 9, 2022

In the United States, the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, in force January 1, 1907, did not create a coffee law as there is a tea law, but imposed the label: until then, writes Ukers, packets bore the magic names Mocha and Java without containing them, and blends with a high proportion of chicory were sold as “Pure Mocha and Java Coffee”; from then on the label must name the coffees or a brand with the name of the packer, and any filler must be declared in clear type right after the brand. The use of chicory and cereals by packers, very widespread until 1907, declined in most regions. There is nevertheless no federal law against chicory in a hotel coffee, only state laws; a manual of 1922 advises ten percent chicory to give body, provided one does not write coffee on the menu. The world, for its part, waits for the International Coffee Agreement of 2007: its Article 27 forbids selling or advertising under the name of coffee a product containing less than the equivalent of 95% green coffee.

Ukers 1922, ch. XXIII, p. 337-338, ch. XXV, p. 390, 404, ch. XXVI, p. 410; ICO, ICC-134-1, September 9, 2022