# Cascara, the coffee cherry tea worth trying

> The fruit around the coffee bean used to be discarded outright. Brewed as tea, it turns out to be genuinely good, and it's easy to make at home.

By Joey Krosch. Published 2024-05-14, updated 2026-08-17.

Cascara is the dried husk of the coffee cherry, the fruit that surrounds
every coffee bean before processing. For most of coffee's commercial
history it was simply discarded as a processing byproduct. Brewed as tea,
it turns out to have a genuinely pleasant flavour profile in its own
right, and using it rather than composting it is a small, real
sustainability win at the processing end of the supply chain.

## What it actually tastes like

Cascara's flavour depends heavily on where it's from. Latin American
cascara tends to run bright and fruity, hibiscus, cherry, mango notes.
Asian-origin cascara leans earthier, closer to dates. Either way, it's
distinct from coffee itself, closer to a fruit tea than anything
coffee-flavoured, though it does carry a modest amount of caffeine, well
below a coffee's worth per serve.

## How to brew it

**Hot brewing.** Use a ratio of roughly 1 part cascara to 25 parts water
by weight, around 14 grams of cascara to 350 grams of filtered water.
Water temperature in the 93°C to 96°C range works well, similar to a
standard coffee brew. Steep for 4 to 10 minutes, most people land on 6 to
8 minutes as the sweet spot, tasting as you go since cascara's strength
varies more between batches than coffee does.

> **Treat it like a tea, not a coffee substitute:**
> Cascara isn't trying to taste like coffee, and judging it that way misses
> the point. Approach it the way you'd approach a new herbal or fruit tea.

**Cold brew.** Use about 30 grams of cascara to 360 grams of water, and
steep in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours, the same patience cold brew coffee
rewards. The result is smoother and less acidic than the hot version,
worth trying if the hot brew's brightness is more than you want.

## Why it's worth using rather than discarding

Coffee cherry processing generates a genuinely large amount of fruit
waste relative to the small amount of bean inside it. Using cascara,
rather than letting it rot or sending it to landfill, is a straightforward
way to get more use out of the same harvest, and it gives producers who
choose to process and sell it a second product from the same crop rather
than none.

## The takeaway

Cascara is a good example of a byproduct turning out to be worth keeping
on its own merits, not just as an environmental gesture. It's simple to
brew, distinct in flavour from coffee itself, and worth trying if you can
find it from a roaster who processes it properly.