All about Cascara.
“cascara kasˈkɑːrə/ noun noun: cascara; noun: cascara sagrada; plural noun: cascaras 1. a purgative made from the dried bark of an American buckthorn. 2. the tree from which cascara is obtained.”
So last month I was asked to bring some alternative beverages to our London SC. This was a great opportunity to share the things that I’ve seen over the last 6 months or so and also what I’m interested in; I’ve always got an eye on the speciality coffee scene, I love it’s constant vibrancy and willingness to challenge and dive further into coffee exploration.
I’ve seen a lot of uses for Cascara. It’s the dried cherry of the coffee plant. The one pictured is one I picked up from Union Coffee Roasters. It’s their Los Jones Geisha from Panama, and it was delicious brewed straight up. A 4 minute brew gave a delightful cup - notes of apple and prune. It’s got a raisin like sweetness and I also found the aroma to be reminiscent of fresh dried tobacco.
Cascara Soda - I’d also read about making a Demerara syrup out of brewed cascara; I brewed cascara for around 20mins to get it as strongly steeped as possible, before adding Brown Sugar and boiling water. This is then left to cool. Simply put - fill a tall glass with ice, add 3 parts sparkling water and top with 1 part Cascara Demerara syrup. I played around a little more and actually topped the beverage off with 2oz of cloudy lemonade - and just 2 parts sparkling water. It was incredibly refreshing and the Cascara flavours still came through.
If you want to check out more of what’s going on in speciality coffee right now, Square Mile Coffee Roasters actually made ‘Cascara Gummies’ & even Cascara Chocolate ; http://sprudge.com/square-mile-pop-up-lcf-97857.html amp;