Buy Cascara Tea
The intense sweetness of raisins is compared with a tart acidity and rosehip aromatic in this careful selection of cascara from the Helsar de Zarcero micro-mill. Each bag contains 90 grams of tea.
buy cascara tea
44 North Coffee Finca Las Delicias, $9 for 8 oz.Hailing from one of the nine farms owned or managed by the Menéndez family in El Salvador. Flavors include rose hips, tamarind and hibiscus. 44 North also has some suggestions for mixing cascara into cocktails.
Nossa Familia Guatemala Geisha, $6.50 for 4 oz.Sourced from Finca San Jerónimo Miramar in Guatemala, this cascara is heavily dried and has lovely aromatics. They sell in packages of 4 oz., 8 oz., or 12 oz., the latter for $18.
Batlle first used the skins of coffees processed as "naturals," which are dried whole, and then milled. This produced cascara comprised of fine flakes, similar to the tea in a tea bag. Then she began using the skins of coffees that are washed to remove the pulp before drying, as most coffee in Central America and Colombia is processed. This way, the cascara dries like a raisin, and, when brewed, plumps up to reveal the shape of the coffee cherry.
In Deer Isle, Maine, cascara has earned a permanent spot on the chalkboard at 44 North Coffee Roasters. Since first tasting it on a coffee tour of Portland, Ore., a few years ago, owners Megan Wood and Melissa Raftery have been selling cascara from another farm in El Salvador. They sell it brewed in their cafés, and in bulk.
Wood and Raftery recommend steeping three tablespoons of cascara in 10 ounces of hot water for four minutes. For a cold brew, they suggest six tablespoons to 12 ounces of water, steeped for 12 to 16 hours.
Batlle says many people think that cascara is more caffeinated than coffee, but her analyses show otherwise. One analysis found caffeine levels more comparable to black tea. Because it is a natural product, the caffeine content will vary from crop to crop, and is affected by brew strength.
Cascara is catching on in cafés nationwide. Houston's Ahh, Coffee serves it hot, and New England's Blue State Coffee serves it hot, cold, and as their signature Cascara Orange Fizz. Blue Bottle cafés in California and New York also offer a cascara fizz, and Slipstream, in Washington, D.C., serves it as a soda. North Carolina's Slingshot Coffee Co. is selling bottled cascara.
Increasingly, people are developing creative mixed drinks. Cascara-infused vodka is popular, and the 44 North crew has a recipe for hot cascara toddy. Colorado's New Belgium Brewing Company even bottled a limited run of Cascara Quad beer.
Cascara, or coffee cherry tea, is an herbal tea made from the dried berries (also called cherries, or guindas) of the coffee plant. The Spanish word cáscara means "husk". In Bolivia, it is also known as sultana, and is commonly consumed as a tea. It can be mixed with sticks of cinnamon for enhanced flavor and additional anti-oxidants. It has now become a highly appreciated specialty tea. This bag contains 4 oz. of un-roasted, un-ground cascara berries.Coffee cherries contain caffeine, as does the tea, at about a quarter of the caffeine level of brewed coffee. The taste of coffee cherry tea is different from coffee, though: sweet and cherry flavored and very pleasant. Our Bolivian cascara tea has an effervescent, citric acidity. The taste of sweet lemon comes across throughout. It also has hints of chocolate and vanilla. The aroma is of tropical fruits, raisins, and is very intense.Our cascara is un-roasted and un-ground. It is dried on elevated drying beds, known as "camas africanas" ( African drying beds), not on the patio floor, which makes it cleaner and tastier. It also comes from specialty-grade coffee beans (only 20% of the world's coffee supply). We sourced it from one of our regular micro-lot coffee producers, Pablo Coromi, whose coffee trees are 70% Caturra, 30% Typica coffee varietals. His farm is located in the Llusta region, community of Nuevo Canal, part of the Caranavi Province, Department of La Paz. Altitude of his farm is 1,600 meters above sea level (5,000 feet). We ask Pablo to select the best cherries and dry them over a raised bed. To maintain its quality we pack the cascara at origin (in Bolivia) in hermetically sealed GrainPro bags, which do not allow oxygen in and maintain constant water activity levels.Brewing guidelines for cascara tea have not yet been standardized, but 22 grams per quart of water, or approximately 5.6 grams per cup (8 oz., 240 ml) is suggested. When the coffee cherry tea is ground and classified to loose tea industry standard size, one teaspoon per 6 ounces of water, steeped for 5 minutes are the standard brewing instructions. We simply put the cascara in the bottom of a coffee mug, fill it with boiling water and let it steep covered for 3-4 minutes. Some people strain the tea to remove the dried berries. Others enjoy it by just letting the steeped dried berries fall to the bottom of the cup. Proper brewing yields a dark red tea. Brew time guidelines range from 4 minutes to 7 or 8 minutes. Experiment and enjoy!
Aida and Douglas have been experimenting with the cascara tea washed process since 2012. Warm cascara tea (using cascara from Finca Kilimanjaro, of course) is added to a wet fermentation (water from de-pulping stays with the parchment rather than being drained).
Much like the fruit-additive processes that are currently in vogue, the fragrant chemical compounds from the fruity cascara can penetrate the cell membrane of the bean and be uptaken, adding interesting flavours to the final cup. Adding this tea to the fermentation tank also provides extra sugars to lure microorganisms that make fermentation possible.
The beauty of coffee is in its diversity: each blend can have a rainbow of distinct flavours depending on growing methods and locations. All our flavours of coffee shine in their own way, with the blends creating a whole bouquet of flavours and aroma. And cascara is no different.
You are more than likely to be able to buy cascara online than any standard grocery store. However, do check with your neighbourhood's herbs & spices shop or at a speciality coffee shop, maybe they will know more about buying it locally!
Cascara, meaning "husk" or "skin" in Spanish, is a coffee cherry tea made from the fruit of the coffee tree where-from the beans, that we so dotingly roast, originate. A byproduct of the milling process cascara is normally used as mulch or discarded, however it also makes for a naturally sweet, antioxidant rich*, mildly caffeinated, easy to brew beverage (see brewing instructions on label).
Coffee cascara contains caffeine, as does its tea, at about a quarter of the caffeine level of brewed coffee. The taste of coffee cherry tea is different from coffee, though: sweet and cherry flavored and very pleasant. Our Bolivian cascara tea has an effervescent, citric acidity. The taste of sweet lemon comes across throughout. It also has hints of chocolate and vanilla. The aroma is of tropical fruits, raisins, and is very intense.Our cascara is un-roasted and un-ground. The coffee cherries, where our cascara comes from, are processed using the fully-washed method (de-pulped, fermented and washed) and both coffee beans and cascara are dried on separate, elevated drying beds, known as "camas africanas" ( African drying beds), not on the patio floor, which makes the cascara cleaner and tastier. We do not use Natural-process (dried whole bean on the patio like raisins), which, obviously do not produce cascara. Our cascara comes from specialty-grade coffee beans (only 20% of the world's coffee supply). We sourced it from one of our regular micro-lot coffee producers, Pablo Coromi, whose coffee trees are 70% Caturra, 30% Typica coffee varietals. His farm is located in the Llusta region, community of Nuevo Canal, part of the Caranavi Province, Department of La Paz. Altitude of his farm is 1,600 meters above sea level (5,000 feet). We ask Pablo to select the best skins and mucilage (un-dried cascara) and then dry them over a raised bed. To maintain its quality we pack the cascara at origin (in Bolivia) in hermetically sealed GrainPro bags, which do not allow oxygen in and maintain constant water activity levels.Brewing guidelines for cascara tea have not yet been standardized, but 22 grams per quart of water, or approximately 5.6 grams per cup (8 oz., 240 ml) is suggested. When the coffee cherry tea is ground and classified to loose tea industry standard size, one teaspoon per 6 ounces of water, steeped for 5 minutes are the standard brewing instructions. We simply put the cascara in the bottom of a coffee mug, fill it with boiling water and let it steep covered for 3-4 minutes. Some people strain the tea to remove the dried berries. Others enjoy it by just letting the steeped dried berries fall to the bottom of the cup. Proper brewing yields a dark red tea. Brew time guidelines range from 4 minutes to 7 or 8 minutes. Experiment and enjoy!
Coffee cherry tea (is perhaps the very first way our ancestors enjoyed the coffee tree. Each cherry has a fruit (paricarp) butter portion, containing two seeds, from which we get our coffee. Peaberry coffees have only one seed per cherry. One name given to this fruity exterior is "cascara", meaning husk or hull. 041b061a72