Cascara- A Fruit Tisane- Coffee Cherry Tea
Cascara emerges somewhere at the intersection of coffee and tea- sort of anyway. Although it comes from the coffee plant, (it is the dried husk of the coffee cherry) the drink doesn’t taste anything like coffee. Our Organic cascara from Bolivia (Caranvi Region) is described as having a sweet, fruity taste with notes of raspberry and red current So it is a tea? Or is a coffee? What the heck is going on? While cascara isn’t exactly coffee, it technically isn’t tea either. Because cascara comes from the genus coffea instead of the Camellia sinensis (tea) plant, it doesn’t make the classification as a true tea. Ok- so it is an heabral tea? Nope. It not quite herbal either as cacara is made from a fruit rather than herbs. So what is it? If pressed for a classification, perhaps the best category for cascara is as a fruit tisane. Steep like tea and enjoy the unique sweetness. Steep times impact the amount of caffeine in your cup however the caffeine is very low- around a mere 1/8th of the caffeine found in your everyday brewed cup of coffee.
Recipes:
As usual we suggest weighing your dose.
Hot Brew:
Use 1 gram of cascara for every 30 grams of hot water off the boil.
Steep for 5-7 minutes. Strain
Flash Cold Brew:
Use 1 gram of cascara for every 15 grams of hot water.
Steep for 10 minutes.
Pour over full glass of ice.
As a Syrup:
45 grams cascara tea
400 milliliters hot water
Steep for five minutes, agitate every minute
Add 3 tbsp of raw sugar
1 cap full of vanilla syrup
Let cool.
Bottle the syrup and store in the refrigerator. (7 day shelf life max)
Cascara Cold Brew:
30 grams of cascara to 360 grams of cold water
Steep 24 hours. Strain/fliter out the cascara. Enjoy!
*for extra sweetness and variation add in some of tisane syrup from above and squeeze in and add orange wedge.