While working on a project in Hong Kong, I loved to roam around the city when I had time off visiting different tea and coffee shops. This is where I came across tea made out of a coffee fruit skin. A great blend of my two favourite things! This tea is called "cascara" and has a pleasant floral, yet dry and leathery undertones.
Of course, I had to find out more about this unusual tea.
Cascara is commonly used in coffee producing countries such as Bolivia, Yemen, and Indonesia for centuries as a byproduct in coffee production.
Cascara (husk in Spanish), is the dried skin of coffee cherries.
The skins are collected after the stones have been removed from the cherries for further production of coffee. The coffee cherry skin is then dried under the sun.
Although it comes from a coffee plant, it does not taste anything like coffee. Cascara has a sweet, fruity taste with notes of rose hip, hibiscus, cherry, mango, and tobacco.
Until recent years, coffee cherry tea was rarely commercially available. It first started popping up in coffee shops as an educational tool for baristas to teach guests where coffee comes from.
Here's a recipe courtesy of Akademi:
Cascara
20ml Ketel One Vodka
20ml Cascara Arak
10ml Rosella Arak
25ml Cascara Tea
10ml Citrus Juice
15ml Lemongrass Shrub
2 dashes of Mountain Bitter
Garnish
Lemon strings
Dried lemon
1. Shake.
2. Garnish with lemon strings and dried lemon.
Comentarios