Plate XVII · section 17 of 17

Today

Feima poster, coffee substitute with added coffee beansLudwig Hohlwein (1874-1949) · Public domain

In 2025-2026, adulteration took up its two historical forms again, under price pressure. The more coffee costs, the more profitable it becomes to put something else in the packet.

The first form is the filler, that is, material added to make weight, and it plays out in Brazil. The Ministry of Agriculture seized 82 tonnes in four days in May 2026 and closed nearly a third of the sites inspected. The second form is the name. It is found wherever an arabica, a Geisha or a Blue Mountain sells for more than what it contains.

Control, for its part, has moved from Thurber's glass of water toward NMR and NIR. These instruments see an adulteration at 0.3%, but they cannot name it beyond two ingredients. And for origin, databases would be needed that nobody has yet built for most terroirs.

Regulation therefore advances by traceability rather than by analysis:

for lack of being able to read the place in the bean,
the plot is asked to declare itself. European Regulation 2023/1115 on deforestation-free products covers coffee. It will require operators to geolocate plots from December 30, 2026
and from June 30, 2027 for micro and small enterprises established as such on December 31, 2024; instant coffee enters its scope on December 30, 2027 (delegated regulation (EU) 2026/2102). Two postponements have already been decided
December 2025in December 2024 and

Coffee without coffee, for its part, has raised tens of millions of dollars and is entering coffee chains, without its right to the word coffee being settled. And chicory, a hundred and fifty years after Hassall, sells on the shelf under its own name, to people who love it.

clarim.net.br, May 30, 2026; environment.ec.europa.eu, EUDR page, accessed September 7, 2026; perfectdailygrind.com, October 8, 2025

Gray areas

What the sources do not allow us to assert. We say so rather than filling the gap.

The real scale of fraud in the 19th century: Thurber and Walsh describe processes, never proportions of bags or markets; the thousand-pound formula is given as typical without anyone knowing of what (Thurber 1881, p. 165; LC ch. 10).
The health effects of lead chromate and Venetian red on drinkers: neither source mentions them, and no study of the period was found (Walsh 1894, p. 200).
The thresholds of Walsh's ash test (p. 220-221) are not given in the digest available; the book was not reread in full.
The date of chicory in Holland: Ukers writes around 1750 in the chemistry chapter (p. 170) and 1770 in his chronology (p. 725-737); the contradiction is his.
The etymology of Muckefuck (“mocca faux” of 1870 versus Rhenish dialect according to the Duden) is not settled (de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zichorienkaffee).
The expression “Bourbon coffee” as the name of a substitute or of a fraud was not found in any of the sources consulted (Thurber, Walsh, Ukers, chapter 10); it is therefore not covered.
The text of the French law of August 1, 1905 and its implementing decrees specific to coffee could not be consulted online (Légifrance and Wikipedia inaccessible on September 7, 2026); the law is cited from its date and its purpose, without its first article.
The “80% of fake kopi luwak” is a press estimate (intelligence.coffee, 2022) with no published study; the only scientific basis is the marker set of Jumhawan et al. (2013).
The GC-MS analyses of Colombian competition co-fermented coffees that found BHT and propylene glycol, attributed to the roaster-analyst Roasticious and discussed on home-barista.com in 2025, could not be read at the source (access denied); they are not retained as established fact. Likewise, the Food Chemistry study (2026) comparing fermented, washed and artificially flavored beans was seen only by its title.
The cost per sample of the modern methods (NMR, DNA, isotopes) is not published by any of the sources consulted; the table gives only durations and thresholds.
No statistics on seizures of counterfeit capsules were found; the question of capsules is treated as a patent dispute, which is what it is in the sources.
The so-called affair of the fake “100% arabica” rests on the anonymized Norwich investigation (2018); no trial or named recall from 2023-2026 could be documented with the research budget available.

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