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Nechezol was a Romanian coffee substitute, imposed on the market in the last years of communism in Romania.

Coffee had virtually disappeared from Romanian stores in the 1980s (but was still available in Comturist hard-currency luxury shops and on the black market), with the drastic limitation of imports intended to reduce Romania's external debt. Nechezol contained only one-fifth coffee, the balance typically consisting of barley, oats, chickpeas and chestnuts. Its pejorative nickname is derived from the verb a necheza (to neigh), alluding to the oats (usually fed to horses), with the chemical suffix -ol giving a pseudoscientific touch alluding to Elena Ceaușescu, "world-renowned scientist" and wife of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Nechezol contained no caffeine.

See also

• East German coffee crisis

Notes and references

1. Perianu, Catherina (14 October 2008). "Précarité alimentaire, austérité: Manger pendant la dernière décennie communiste en Roumanie" [Food insecurity and austerity: Eating in the last decade of Communism in Romania]. Anthropology of Food (in French) (6). doi:10.4000/aof.4513. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
2. "Memorabilia: O ceasca de nechezol cu lapte de soia, va rog" [Memorabilia: a Cup of Nechezol with Soy Milk, Please]. la zi pe Metropotam (in Romanian). 24 March 2008. Archived from the original on 26 May 2012.
3. "O lume disparută / A Vanished World". Ion Manolescu, Ioan Stanomir, Paul Cernat, Angelo Mitchievici. Archived from the original on 31 March 2014. Coffee had been replaced by a product ironically dubbed nechezol. The term seems to come from the verb a necheza ('to whinny'), but I don't know its etymology for certain. It was made from chickpeas combined with who knows what and drunk as a substitute for coffee. Advantage : no caffeine. Disadvantage : it wasn't coffee. With a lot of imagination, you might think you were drinking bad coffee. The worst.

See also

• Cereal coffee
• Postum

• Romanian drinks
• Coffee substitutes
• Socialist Republic of Romania