Cascara Coffee Cherry Kombucha

Cascara kombucha is made from cascara, the dried skin and pulp of the coffee cherry, in place of tea. The cultured drink is fruity and slightly acidic, with a light fizz and none of the roast of coffee. Cascara on its own is often described as raisin and dried fruit.

Origin & Story

Every coffee bean spends its life inside a fruit, and at harvest the fruit is usually thrown away. Dried, the skin and pulp are sold as cascara, from the Spanish for husk. Yemenis have steeped the husks for centuries with ginger and cinnamon, a drink they call qishr, and the European Food Safety Authority dates husk infusions in Yemen to the 16th century.

Turning it into kombucha is a coffee-sector idea of the 2010s. A coffee bar in Amsterdam brewed a cascara kombucha in 2014 and 2015, developed by an American regular who used cascara from a farm in Panama. Its own description was floral, honey and sweet tobacco with lemon and green apple, closer to a Belgian berry beer than to coffee.

Since then roasters and cafes from Canada to New Zealand have tried their own, and university labs in Indonesia, a major coffee-growing country, have tested it in controlled batches. In one study, tasters preferred cascara brewed for five minutes to cascara brewed for ten, and the jars fermented for about eight days.

Steep 15 g of dried cascara in 250 ml of water at 95°C for 5 minutes, strain, stir in 50 g of sugar, add 600 ml of cool water and let it reach room temperature, then add 100 ml of starter and the SCOBY and ferment 7 to 10 days at 20 to 26°C.

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