Is coffee without coffee beans still coffee? We tried this new made-in-Singapore alternative from upcycled food waste

While other bean-free coffee producers in the world use ingredients like chickpeas, rice hulls and seeds to make their product, Prefer’s founders wanted to upcycle food waste products found locally, in line with the whole point of bean-free coffee, which is sustainability, Tan told us.

To that end, they use soya pulp discard from local soya milk chain Mr Bean, day-old bread from Gardenia bakery and spent grains that are a byproduct of beer-making from local breweries.

These are fermented, then roasted, and finally ground up.

Consumers and partnering cafes receive the product in a form that looks like ground coffee and can be extracted using the usual methods. The point was for baristas to have to deviate as little as possible from their procedure, Tan said.

The bean-free coffee does not contain caffeine, but if you really, really need it, you can choose to add caffeine powder to your drink, he added.

As a food scientist who has conducted countless fermentation experiments, Tan studied flavour molecules in order to replicate the taste of coffee as closely as possible. It is an ongoing work-in-progress and a labour of love for the 31-year-old coffee aficionado.