Coffee cherry tea or Cáscara (Spanish: husk, peel or skin) is tea from the peel of coffee cherries.
For this, the fruit is sun-dried after separation from the coffee bean.
Cascara can be made from all coffee varieties.
The tea contains similarly much caffeine like coffee, but varies however like coffee and has a pleasant invigorating effect.
Coffee farmers in Yemen have discovered centuries ago that the peel and the pulp of the coffee cherries contain complex fruit aromas and valuable nutrients such as vitamin B2, vitamin E, calcium, magnesium and iron.
Cascara is also referred to as the coffee of the poor man, who can not afford the roasted beans and thus to the peel, which account for 30% of the coffee harvest.
The amber-colored to golden-red infusion is strong, sweet, tastes a little after redbush tea with fine taste notes of fresh orange and rose hip. But this also varies according to origin, harvest and variety.