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Nechezol was a Romanian coffee substitute,^[1] 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^[2]), 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.^{[citation needed]}

Nechezol contained no caffeine.^[3]

Notes and references

^ 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.
^ "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.
^ "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 Coffee had been replaced by a product ironically dubbed nechezol.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.