Cascara Tea

«Coffee cherry tea». These are made using the husks left behind after the removal of coffee beans. They are dried resulting in a product similar to tea, the highly beneficial tea. Its taste is however different from that of tea with most people reporting it to have a «sweet yet fruity» taste with a distinctive tobacco and hibiscus taste intermingled in it.

Coffee cherries (also known as coffee berries) are the whole fruits which grow on the coffee plant. Cascara comes from the Arabic word «Qishr», meaning «peel» or «husk».

A coffee cherry is normally red but can also be yellow and shades of orange. The two seeds inside the cherry (which can sometimes be one seed and is referred to as a peaberry) is what we know as a coffee bean. Ordinarily, the cherry is pulped, the seeds are removed for roasting. But as word spreads about an alternative use for them in cherry coffee, they are taking on a whole new life of their own. The dried husks resemble tea leaves a bit, but they are slightly larger and have a leathery, woody look to them, similar to a raisin or a nutshell.