Cascara is the Dried Fruit Husk and Skins from the Coffee Cherry

As you may know, coffee is the pit of a fruit - a coffee cherry - that looks like a cross between what we know as our cherry and cranberry. The taste of the coffee cherry even reminds me of a cross between those two fruits. The pit is removed and dried out at or near the farm and then shipped and roasted locally to make coffee beans. So as we eat the fruit of a cherry and throw the pit away, in coffee producing countries, they keep the pits (there are usually two pits in a coffee cherry) and discard the fruit of the coffee cherry. While they don’t necessarily throw it away, they often do cast it aside to make fertilizer out of it.

Unless they don’t. In that case they may make Cascara out of it and sell it through similar channels as coffee. Cascara is the dried fruit husk and skins from the coffee cherry. The word Cascara means ‘husk’ in Spanish. Once dried, Cascara can then be brewed as a delicious tea. We have found it to have tasting notes like rose hip, hibiscus, cherry, and tobacco.

We now have a supply of Cascara that we are offering in 85 gram bags for the purpose of brewing as tea. The best research we can find is that it has roughly 1/4 of the caffeine of coffee and more antioxidants than cranberries. We are including recipes for several ways to brew it, but we do suggest that you search the Internet for your own as well.

Hot Cascara Cherry Tea. Use 8 grams cascara to make 8 ounces of tea. Brew time 8 minutes with 180 degree hot filtered water.

Iced Cascara Cherry Tea. Use 24 grams to make 16 ounces. Brew time 8 minutes with 180 degree hot filtered water.. Let cool then pour over ice.

Cold Brew Cascara Cherry Tea. Use 20 grams to make 12 ounces. Brew time 24 hours starting with room temperature filtered water in the refrigerator. Serve over ice.

You can find our offering here.