Preheat oven to 350°F.

Wash fresh dandelion roots, scrubbing to remove any dirt. Pull off the majority of the tiny, threadlike roots, but don’t worry about removing them all. Allow the roots to dry.

Chop the roots into very small pieces, ¼ inch or so, and place on a metal or ceramic baking dish in a single layer.

Roast the roots for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes have passed, mix up the roots, and continue roasting for 10 minutes at a time, checking and stirring each time so the roots (particularly the ones at the edges of the pan) don’t burn.

The roots are finishes roasting when the exposed white insides begin to brown, the outsides toughen and become leathery, and the roots begin to give off a light roasted-nut fragrance. Though there are many different opinions on how long to roast the roots for until they are done, in my own experience I have found that thorough roasting may take up to 70 minutes, even when I have chopped the roots into tiny pieces. Because of this, don’t skip the step of checking frequently, even going down to 5 minutes at a time toward the end, since you don’t want the smallest pieces to burn.

Allow the roasted roots to cool completely. Once cool they should be dry and hard all the way through. If the roots don’t seem completely dry, place in a single layer in a dehydrator or at the lowest temperature in your oven until the roots are very hard and dry. (The extra time to ensure complete dehydration here is worth it, since properly dried and stored, these roots will last at least one year and could last much longer depending on your storage conditions.)

Store the roasted and dried roots in an airtight container like a glass jar in a dark spot at room temperature.

TO BREW COFFEE WITH DANDELION ROOT:

Grind roasted dandelion roots in a coffee grinder along with whole coffee beans. I use a ratio of 3:1, beans to root for my own mixture, through this ratio is flexible depending on your taste and caffeine preferences.

Brew as you would your regular coffee (drip, French press, percolator, etc). I will often also include ground dried chaga mushroom and/or ground dried chicory root in my coffee-dandelion mixture, using slightly less chaga than dandelion in my ratios, and treating the roasted chicory root just as I would the dandelion root.