Cascara as we most commonly know it, is an infusion made from the dried outer layers of the coffee berry. You can buy it dried in packets or as a bottled beverage. The flavour varies just like different coffees do, ranging from hibiscus, red currant and rose hip to peach, plum and pear. The aroma can be quite raisin-like. It’s colour varies from a light to a rich orange-red, depending on the infusion time.
Cascara is delicious hot or cold. To make it hot, put a few tablespoons of the dried fruit into a teapot and top with water a little below boiling point. Pour after 5 – 10 minutes; longer to make it stronger. To drink it cold, just let the hot beverage cool. Or infuse the dried fruit in cold water for a longer time, overnight or up to 24 hours.
For something different, you can add soda or tonic to cascara syrup – made by boiling most of the water away and adding a little sugar to offset any bitterness. In his performance at the 2019 World Barista Championsip Matt Winton, two times Swedish barista champion used a cascara syrup in his ‘zero waste signature beverage‘.
Called ‘sultana’, a traditional drink from Bolivia. is made by lightly toasting the fruit before infusing it in water with cinnamon sticks.
It was first believed cascara was very high in caffeine, based on the fact that people reported feeling the ‘caffeine effect’ after drinking it and possibly because of the long infusion time needed to extract the flavours. However, testing by Square Mile in the UK in 2013 has proven that, unlike coffee, the infusion time had little effect on the amount of caffeine and that the ratio of cascara to water had a considerable effect. Surprisingly the caffeine content was low, which begs the question, ‘What else is in coffee cherries that can account for the ‘caffeine effect’?
In Spanish, the word ‘cáscara’ means ‘husk’ or ‘skin’. For hundreds of years, these outer layers have been used to make a beverage, often with ginger and spices added – in Ethiopia and Somalia in Africa and Yemen in the Middle East. Also in El Salvador and Bolivia in South America. With coffee as their income and cascara the by-product that would otherwise be wasted, it’s no surprise cascara is drunk in preference to coffee in poorer countries.
But in most countries the outer layers are put back into the soil as compost or wasted where they’re left to rot in landfill and make their way into waterways.
In a modern day world with an awareness of where waste ends up, consider for a minute the impact the by-product of the world’s second most traded commodity might have. It’s enormous!
From an environmental perspective, it makes perfect sense the fruit of the coffee berry be repurposed into useful eco-friendly products. An initiative of The Coffee Cherry Co, there’s now a gluten-free flour made from cascara. Click on the link to see how it’s made.
Considering the health benefits, it’s surprising cascara in its various forms, isn’t more popular with today’s health conscious consumers. In the study ‘Bioactives of Coffee Cherry Pulp and its Utilisation for Production of Cascara Beverage‘ it’s reported that coffee cherries are high in antioxidants, particularly phenolic compounds said to offer protection from degenerative diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, osteoporosis and neurodegenerative diseases.
Cascara is often referred to as a tea, but that’s not botanically correct as tea comes from the leaves of the Camellia Sinensis plant.
Lastly. don’t confuse cascara made from coffee berry fruit with that made from buckthorn tree bark. Known as ‘cascara sagrada’, it’s used as a laxative.