How to Brew Cascara (the Coffee Cherry Tea That's Not Coffee and Not Quite Tea Either)
Cascara is the dried skin and pulp of the coffee cherry — the fruit that surrounds the coffee seed. After coffee is processed, the seed is roasted and brewed as coffee. The cherry pulp that surrounded the seed was, until recently, mostly a waste product. Now it's being dried and sold as "cascara" or "coffee cherry tea," and brewed as a hot or cold infusion.
Cascara is not coffee. It doesn't have the caffeine of brewed coffee, the roast flavors of coffee, or the body of coffee. It's also not really tea, even though it's called "coffee cherry tea." It's its own thing — a tisane made from fruit material, closer to a fruit tea than to either coffee or Camellia sinensis.
What it tastes like is surprising the first time. The cup is bright, fruity, slightly sweet, with a low bitterness that resembles a mild rosehip or hibiscus tea. There's a faint coffee-adjacent flavor in the background — a hint of the seed's neighbors — but the dominant impression is fruit, not coffee.
This is how to brew cascara well, what to expect from the cup, and why it's worth trying if you can get your hands on some.
What cascara actually is
Cascara comes from coffee cherries at the processing stage. When coffee is processed, the cherry is separated from the seed inside it. The seed (the "bean") goes on to be dried, milled, and roasted. The cherry pulp — the skin and the mucilage around the seed — used to be discarded or composted. Now, in many coffee-growing regions, the pulp is dried separately and sold as cascara.
The drying process is similar to drying fruit for tea or herbal tisanes. The fresh pulp is laid out in the sun or dried mechanically until it reaches about 10 to 15% moisture. The dried material is then broken up into a coarse, flaky texture and packaged.
The chemical composition of cascara is very different from coffee. Coffee beans have high concentrations of caffeine and chlorogenic acids, which give coffee its bitterness and stimulating effect. Cascara has much less caffeine (about a quarter of the caffeine content of brewed coffee by weight) and lower chlorogenic acid concentrations. It has more fruit sugars and aromatic compounds from the cherry skin, which give it the tea-like cup.
Where cascara comes from
Cascara is produced wherever coffee is processed — Colombia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Brazil, Costa Rica, Bolivia, and many other origins. The flavor varies depending on the coffee variety, the soil, the climate, and the processing method.
A washed-process coffee gives the cascara a cleaner, brighter flavor. A natural-process coffee gives the cascara a fruitier, more fermented character. Ethiopian and Kenyan cascara tend to be bright and tea-like. Bolivian and Colombian cascara tend to be richer and more berry-forward. Yemeni cascara, when you can find it, is somewhere in between with a distinctive wine-like note.
If you buy cascara from a roaster, ask which origin it came from. The origin affects the cup more than for most teas, because the coffee variety and processing both vary a lot across the coffee industry.
How to brew cascara
Cascara is brewed like an herbal tisane, not like coffee. The dried material is infused in hot or cold water, then strained. You don't grind it. You don't filter it through paper. You just steep it like loose-leaf tea.
Hot brew:
- 10 grams of dried cascara (about 2 tablespoons)
- 500 grams of filtered water at 200°F (just off boiling)
- Steep for 5 to 7 minutes
- Strain and serve
Cold brew (recommended for the cleanest cup):
- 15 grams of dried cascara
- 1 liter of cold filtered water in a jar or pitcher
- Refrigerate for 12 to 18 hours
- Strain and serve over ice
The cold brew is gentler on the cascara. The hot brew extracts more aggressively, which can bring out a slightly bitter note that the cold brew avoids. If you're new to cascara, start with the cold brew.
Cascara can also be brewed in a French press, in a tea infuser, or in a coffee brewing device that uses a fine mesh filter. Avoid paper filters — the fine particles will clog a paper filter and you'll lose flavor.
What cascara tastes like
The cup is hard to predict if you've never had it. Most first-time drinkers describe it as a fruit tea that tastes "kind of like coffee."
The dominant notes are fruit — usually a combination of stone fruit, berries, and a slight rose or hibiscus character. There's a faint sweetness that comes from the natural sugars in the cherry pulp. There's a low bitterness in the finish that resembles the bitterness of green coffee, but it doesn't build up the way coffee bitterness does. There's no crema, no roast flavor, no "coffee" mouthfeel.
Depending on the origin, you might taste:
- Ethiopian cascara: bright, floral, almost bergamot-like
- Colombian cascara: sweet, berry-forward, with a hint of mango
- Bolivian cascara: rich, fruit-forward, with notes of dark berries and plum
- Yemeni cascara: wine-like, complex, with a long finish
There's also a wide variation within regions, depending on the farm and the processing method. If you find a cascara you like, ask which farm it came from and see if you can find more from the same source.
Cascara and the zero-waste idea
Cascara has been getting attention in the specialty coffee world partly because it's a way to use more of the coffee plant. Coffee producers have historically discarded or composted the cherry pulp. Selling it as cascara gives them a second revenue stream from the same harvest.
This matters for the producer's economics. Coffee is volatile — the price of green coffee fluctuates, and small producers can lose money in bad years. Adding cascara to the income reduces the risk of relying on a single product. It's also a way to make the entire coffee cherry productive, which is a more efficient use of the land, water, and labor that went into the harvest.
For the buyer, cascara is a way to experience the coffee plant differently. The cup you get from cascara is genuinely different from the cup you get from the bean, and trying both is part of what makes specialty coffee interesting.
Not all coffee roasters carry cascara. It's a small market, and many roasters don't have relationships with producers who can supply it. If you're interested, ask your roaster if they have cascara or can get it. If they can't, cascara is increasingly available online, and a few importers specialize in it.
What to expect the first time
If you've never had cascara, expect to be surprised. The cup is fruit-forward, slightly sweet, low in bitterness, and very different from both coffee and traditional tea. The first time, try it plain — no milk, no sugar, no additions. The cup is meant to be drunk as it is.
Try it both ways — hot and cold. The cold brew is cleaner and more refreshing. The hot brew is more aromatic, with the fruit notes coming forward more strongly. Both are good.
If you like it, try a few different origins. The variation across origins is bigger than for most teas or coffees. Ethiopian, Colombian, Bolivian, and Yemeni cascara are four distinct drinks.
What we like about cascara at Cozy Sips
We don't carry cascara in the catalog yet, partly because the supply chain is harder to manage than coffee and partly because the shelf life of dried cascara is shorter than green coffee. But we brew it at the roastery when we can get it, and it's one of the drinks we recommend to people who want to explore the coffee plant beyond the bean.
If we do carry it in the future, it'll be from a single farm we already work with, so we know the producer and the processing. Cascara is one of those products where traceability matters more than for most — the cascara you get is only as good as how it was dried and stored after processing.
For now, the easiest way to try cascara is to ask your local roaster if they have any, or to buy a small bag from one of the importers that specializes in it. Brew it cold first. If you like it, try it hot. Then try a different origin.
— Seraphina
P.S. If you want to explore more of the unusual parts of the coffee world, our matcha origin covers a similar kind of "use more of the plant" idea for tea, and our Vietnamese phin brewing guide is one of the more unusual coffee brewing methods we cover on the blog.