This is an updated post from 2016!
Cascara is one of our oldest Premium brews. It is actually one of our first specials.
Cascara Kombucha is our version of a Coffee Kombucha, and it is also our first cold brew.
But first: what is Cascara?
The word comes from Spanish and it means "a husk" or "a peel", so that is not much yet.
But in the combination with a coffee bean...
This meaning denotes the outer shell(s) of a coffee bean, which is further dried up, so it looks like this:
Those shells are usually steeped to make a beverage. But the beverage reminds the drinker more of a tea, than of a coffee.
And this creates a bit of a confusion, as it is sometimes called "coffee cherry tea" (or Kaffeekirschentee in German).
Depending on a variety, the flavor will vary. This particular Cascara that came from Yemen, tasted more like light coffee and chocolate, with some slight malt notes, and some bitter notes.
As a Kombucha, the flavor profile was quite different.
In countries where coffee beans are grown, this was once considered to be a by-product of a coffee production. Poor workers that were employed at those coffee production places, used those husks to make a beverage.
When Cascara is well prepared, it can be quite delicious. For that reason Cascara has slowly become more and more popular in the western hemisphere.
Here in Europe, the sale of Cascara was prohibited for about five years, but starting this year (2022), the Yemeni Cascara is temporarily allowed to be imported to EU.
South American Cascara tastes a bit different. Below is an excerpt from an article by Fresh Cup magazine:
"Cascara is found somewhere at the intersection of coffee and tea—although it comes from the coffee plant, the drink doesn’t taste anything like coffee. Cascara is often described as having a sweet, fruity taste with notes of rose hip, hibiscus, cherry, red current, mango or even tobacco. Likewise, the tea does not have the same caffeine content as coffee..."Even at the strongest, longest brew, the caffeine content of cascara came in at 111.4 mg/L, compared to broad range of about 400-800 mg/L in brewed coffee.”
In that article you can find out a lot more about Cascara, if you're interested.
Since the Cascara tea (or rather a "tisane"), can be made by either a cold or hot steeping, we have decided to experiment with the first option.
So, we start with BIO (Organic) unrefined brown sugar and filtered and revitalized water.
Next come Cascara shells.
And finally, one of our Scobies with some starter liquid.
We leave Cascara shells throughout the fermentation process which lasts about six to seven days.
When our cold-brew is finally done.
We take the Scoby out and we strain the shells.
And then we bottle our Cascara Kombucha.
And the finished product.
Cascara Kombucha is quite yummy. It is light, refreshing and it has slight coffee notes, as well as cherry and even quite prominent notes reminiscent of gooseberries.
It was a pleasure to make it again after almost six years.
Below are some vintage photos from our first productions.
Ingredients: Filtered and Revitalized Water, Live Kombucha Cultures, Unrefined Brown Sugar and Cascara