ALBUQUERQUE, NM—In the heat of the desert, coffee tastes a bit different, but that might just be the flavor of the piñon nut. A characteristic taste of New Mexico is that of Piñon Coffee. Albuquerque’s signature roast has been brewed by its namesake company since 1994. The coffee is a delicious mix of arabica beans and the Southwest’s native piñon nut. It has a nutty, umami, and graham-cracker-like flavor which compliments the bitterness of black coffee.
When Piñon Coffee first started out, they would use actual piñon nuts in their roast. As they have scaled up over the past 25 years, the company has opted to use a standardized piñon flavoring to impart the essence of the nutty delicacy into their coffee.
Today, the brand has a devout following, with some Albuquerqueans swearing off other mainstream alternatives. While the business has changed hands since it originally opened its doors, having been sold in 2009, its Zia emblazoned cups are still cherished on a daily basis.
In fact, looking around New Mexico, it seems that New Mexico Piñon Coffee has a corner on the piñon flavored coffee market. There are other brands selling piñon coffee like Rio Grande Roasters, but without an apparent website or social media presence, they appear to be more of a generic, co-packing entity than a distinctive brand. Some local specialty roasters offer a piñon flavor, but none hang their hat on the flavor like New Mexico Piñon Coffee. They appear to be the originators of the Southwestern flavor blend.
Yet the idea of piñon coffee is not unique to the company. In all likelihood, using piñon nuts as a coffee substitute comes from the realm of indigenous food knowledge. The company makes no mention of the inspiration for its signature flavoring on its website, so it is worth recapping the history of piñon coffee and the diversity of other coffee substitutes in the Southwest.
The locals of the arid Southwest have long scavenged piñon nuts from the mountain sides, but this doesn’t mean they have always brewed a drink from the roasted nuts.
In order to realize that roasted piñon tasted like coffee, native folks in the Southwest needed to try coffee first. Charlotte J Frisbie’s Food Sovereignty the Navajo Way: Cooking with Tall Woman suggests that the Navajo people had been exposed to coffee by the Spanish prior to 1863. It seems likely that it would have been around this time. Even in the Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, mentions of coffee in the 1850s are rare and often pulled from East Coast print.
However, records from the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, the US government’s forced relocation of the Navajo from Arizona to New Mexico in 1864, indicate that coffee was being rationed to the Navajo during their grueling displacement. The United States Indian Bureau also rationed coffee to the Navajo during the winters of 1868 and 1869. (Adahooniłigii, 01 August 1953)
While the earliest native exposures to coffee in the Southwest were essentially by force, coffee would become a cornerstone of indigenous foodways in the Southwest throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. An 1890 document from the 11th Census of the United States on Native populations in each state discusses the conditions of Mezcaleros on reservations and notes, “When the government began issuing rations of coffee the Indians refused to take it, but by degrees they acquired such a liking for it that now coffee is valued more highly than flour.”
Many outsiders would later comment on the ubiquity of coffee in Navajo life, and when World War II drove the US to ration coffee, various non-Native newspapers described the need to ship coffee to Gallup. An AP Feature reported in 1943, “To the Navajo, coffee ranks in importance right behind his horses and his flocks.”
Coffee even kept its name in Navajo. Depending on the source and its academic rigor, the Navajo term for the drink was kofa or gohwééh. (The Key West Citizen, 16 Jan. 1943 and Frisbie) By World War II, outsiders even noted the unique preparation methods of coffee among the Navajo. The Associated Press reported, “Navajo recipe is to dump coffee, sugar and water together into the pot and boil. The principal detail of Navajo coffee making is boiling. If anyone needs more coffee, additional sugar, water and coffee are tossed into the pot. At the discretion of the cook, the old grounds are tossed out–usually at camp moving time.” (The Daily Alaska Empire, 13 Jan. 1943) That is, coffee grounds were continually reused.
In fact, Navajo Coffee would become a well established take on the drink. At first, Navajo Coffee was a brand name sold by Chicago based E.N. Manning Company and distributed as far as Colorado. It is not clear that there were any additives to the coffee of this brand.
Nevertheless, over time, Navajo Coffee became synonymous with a cup of coffee thickened to a paste with toasted flour. Today, the flour is invariably that of the Blue Bird Mill which is also used in making traditional fry bread. In 2010, a part owner of the flour brand told the Navajo Times, “We wouldn’t be in business without the Navajo people. It’s our philosophy that it’s their flour and we make it for them.”
Apparently, the Navajo have devout brand loyalty when it comes to coffee. Blue Bird is a modern example, but for much of Navajo coffee history, it was another company. The brand, already present in New Mexico prior to 1900, was Arbuckles Coffee.
In 1917, Colonel D. K. B. Sellers, who had served as mayor of Albuquerque from 1912 to 1914, spoke in native stereotypes. He is quoted as saying, “”Now, the Navajo and the Apache are fighting Indians. They are sons of nature. Give them some Arbuckles coffee, some cornmeal, and a few sticks of wood and they can live indefinitely under almost any conditions.” (The Canon City Record, 19 April 1917) There are also reports from the 1940s that Arbuckles coffee had tried to change its brand at some point. The Navajo people boycotted it until the company reverted back to its original image. The brand was eventually discontinued in August of 1942. (The Daily Alaska Empire, 13 Jan. 1943)
So the native peoples of the Southwest knew coffee, and grew to consider it a necessity, but did they ever use local foods to change the flavor or substitute the bean? Absolutely.
Perhaps more than any other place in America, the Southwest has a rich and detailed history of using local flavoring agents to mimic or enhance the characteristics of coffee. Piñon nuts were apparently in the ranks of these substitutes, but were not the most prominent.
An 1943 article on wartime coffee rations reads: “Then I started recalling the tales my southern grandmother told me of coffee from parched corn in the days when war swept over that country. I recalled the Navajos’ coffee from pinon nuts and the sassafras tea of the Tennessee hills, and I suddenly decided I was smart enough to whip the situation, to keep within the rationing and still not suffer from shortage of palatable coffee.” ( Detroit Evening Times, 17 April 1943.) Admittedly, this is the only textual evidence that could be found explicitly mentioning piñon coffee, but it does suggest that there was anecdotal knowledge of piñon coffee in the 20th century.
A look at the diversity of other coffee substitutes common to the Southwest infers that something like piñon must have been used.
The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook reports that Pueblo people made a coffee out of the browned hulls of sunflower seeds. The Border Cookbook reports that jojoba, sometimes called coffee bush, was a common coffee substitute “when coffee went short in the borderlands.” The book also lists mesquite beans and burnt wheat as coffee alternatives. Uncultivated Native Plants Used as Sources of Food counts the berries of the Juniper Mistletoe, or Phoradendron juniperinum, as a Hopi coffee substitute. Useful Native Plants in the American Southwestern Deserts has the roasted and ground seeds of western blue flag, or Limniris missouriensis (Nutt.,) as a coffee alternative. And a report by New Mexico State University in collaboration with Navajo Tri-State Federally-Recognized Tribes Extension Program states that “People have also made flour and a coffee-like beverage from the seeds” of the Ephedra plant that is commonly used to brew Mormon Tea.
A fascinating text on corn recipes produced by Wingate Vocational High School students in 1936 mentions that parched corn was a coffee substitute. After the recipe for “Parched Corn Beverage,” which requires parched corn, juniper ash, and boiling water, the text notes, “This is served as a beverage with mutton and was used in olden times in place of coffee.” (Navajo Life Bulletin No. 4, February, 1936)
This native-produced text also shows that Navajos did not just substitute coffee but also sweetener. It was not uncommon to use corn as a sweetener in coffee where there was no sugar. The Wingate Vocational High School students give a recipe for “Dried Pitted Corn with Coffee,” with pitted corn being a corn prepared by steaming unshucked ears in a covered pit with juniper embers. Food Sovereignty the Navajo Way also mentions corn sweeteners in coffee with three distinct varieties: parched corn creamer, doola, powdered dried steam corn creamer, ts’ááłbáí, and Anglo sweet corn, neeshjáhih.
In all likelihood, indigenous taste for coffee in the Southwest developed due to several decades of US army rations that invariably included the stimulating beverage. In this light, coffee is part of the American history of ethnic cleansing, forced relocation, and the theft of native land. However, as the Navajo and other tribes incorporated coffee into their diet, they brought their own local gastronomy to the drink.
When coffee could not be had, intimate indigenous knowledge of Southwestern botany kicked in. Any plant that had seeds, roots, nuts, or kernels that could be roasted, ground, and infused into water would become a viable coffee substitute. Perhaps, native cuisine already had a penchant for roasted seeds and things, so coffee fit well in the indigenous palate. At the very least, there was no shortage of bittering agents for beverages.
So, as good as New Mexico Piñon Coffee tastes, it is important to remember that there are at least 100 years of history behind Southwestern hybrid coffees. The history of piñon coffee, or any mixed coffee, is one of cultural syncretism where indigenous peoples adopted imported coffee and found it akin to native flora.
While anyone passing through Albuquerque should take the time to drink a cup or two of New Mexico Piñon Coffee, it may also be worth looking into buying the Navajo Nation’s own piñon coffee blend at the Navajo Blue Travel Plaza. After all, they are likely the progenitors of the idea behind the delectable brew.
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Navajo Tri-State Federally-Recognized Tribes Extension Program, and New Mexico State University. “Selected Plants of Navajo Rangelands with Navajo names.” Diné bikéyah Chi’l nooséłígíí Bąąhą́ą́nosin | Take care of our Navajo Rangelands. NavajoRange.nmsu.edu, 2023.
Swentzell, Roxanne and Patricia M. Perea, editors. The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Food of Our Ancestors. Museum of New Mexico Press. Santa Fe.
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Wingate Vocational High School, Fort Wingate, New Mexico. “Growing and Using Indian Corn Navajo Fashion.” Navajo Life Bulletin, no. 4, February 1936.
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