Cascara also known as Coffee Cherry Tea, makes an amazing tea with a very soft and natural taste. The term Cascara comes from the Spanish word "cáscara" which means "husk". This is very different from the herb cascara sagrada which is a powerful laxative. The outside skin or husk of the coffee bean (pictures below) starts off as a beautiful crimson protector to the coffee bean that is growing inside. The coffee bean will easily pop out of the fresh husk leaving two separate and wonderful parts to this glorious plant!
Cascara typically ends up as compost on many coffee farms. Most places spread the coffee cherry's out in the open air, let them dry, and then husk them to get the coffee bean out of the middle. This may produce a great coffee bean product, but definitely not a great cascara product. With birds flying overhead, perching on rafters, and "doing their business," its no wonder that most cascara needs to become compost. I've tried many many cascara products and let me tell you, you can always taste the difference and its quite disturbing! So I was on a mission to find a farm that covers their cascara to dry it...and I found it! On the Big Island of Hawaii, right outside of Kona, I found an amazing small scale coffee farm that dries cascara the way we like it!! They husk the coffee cherries before they dry them and then dry the cascara and the coffee bean separately in covered drying racks! This results in an amaaaaazing Cascara!!!
Now you want to talk about the cutest pest control EVER!! This is Rooney and his offspring. They are Kune Kune pigs and are an amazing natural weed prevention for the coffee plants! This farm has a wonderful all natural approach to farming!
That is BEAUTIFUL Cascara!!! Load me up!!! I was able to ship back plenty of product for taste testing and experimenting with blends. Once I got my hands on some amazing Hawaiian yellow ginger and combined the two together, I knew I had the perfect Cascara Ginger blend!!!
So after almost a year of searching and blending, I can provide you with an amazing Cascara blend that is just the beginning of our Cascara blends and a wonderful addition to our line of US grown blends!
For ONE week only, this blend is ON SALE in our online shop! Stock up now, we have limited stock!
Thank you and happy tea time!
Abby