Coffee Drink
Cascara Tea: Coffee Cherry Recipe, Caffeine and Buying Tips
Cascara tea is an infusion of dried coffee-cherry skins and pulp, rather than roasted coffee beans. Also called coffee cherry tea, it can have a fruity, tea-like character. Brew food-grade cascara in hot water, then strain out the husks. It contains caffeine and is a different ingredient from cascara sagrada bark.
Drink Snapshot
- Caffeine
- Contains caffeine; amount variesThis infusion has not been analyzedA coffee or black-tea reference cannot establish this cup's milligrams.
- Calories
- Not established for this brewStrained, unsweetened coffee-cherry infusionDry-husk nutrition is not the same as the liquid you drink.
Serving, sugar and sources
- Serving
- One cup, brewed with 10 g cascara and 250 ml water input
- Made with
- Food-grade dried coffee-cherry cascara and hot water
- Sugar
- No added sugar. Naturally extracted sugar is not quantified; this is not a zero-sugar claim.
- Preparation
- About 7 minutes, including a 5-minute steep
Workshop Coffee brewing instructions, an Onyx Bare Brew comparison and EFSA batch data; reviewed 27 September 2026. No measured nutrition for this home serving. See the full calculation or label comparison.
Key Takeaways
- 1Start with 10 g food-grade coffee-cherry cascara and 250 ml freshly boiled water; steep for 5 minutes, then strain.
- 2Caffeine varies with the cascara and brew. This serving has no established milligram or calorie figure; no sugar is added.
- 3Buy cascara specifically sold for drinking. Coffee cherry, cascara sagrada bark and cascara-flavored syrup are different products.
On This Page9 Sections
What Is Cascara Tea?
Cascara uses the fruit surrounding a coffee seed. The dried outer material is steeped in water and removed before drinking. You do not grind or brew roasted coffee beans for this recipe, and you do not need an espresso machine.
Its flavor can be closer to a dried-fruit infusion than a cup of roasted coffee. For example, Workshop Coffee describes its Rwandan cascara with cranberry, hibiscus and dried-apple notes. Those are the seller's description of that product, not a promise that every cascara will taste the same or a tasting performed for this guide.
The word “tea” describes the preparation here. The ingredient is coffee fruit, rather than the leaves used for ordinary black or green tea. Tea-like does not mean caffeine-free.
Cascara Tea Recipe
Makes one cup. Allow about 7 minutes, including a 5-minute steep. These amounts and the steeping time follow Workshop Coffee's published brewing instructions. Kettle heating time varies.
Ingredients
- 10 g food-grade coffee-cherry cascara
- 250 ml freshly boiled water
Method
- Put 10 g cascara in a heatproof teapot with a mesh infuser, or use a separate fine strainer when pouring.
- Pour in 250 ml freshly boiled water. Leave to steep for 5 minutes.
- Strain into a heatproof cup, leaving the husks behind. Let the tea cool to a comfortable drinking temperature.
250 ml is water poured into the brewer, not the promised finished yield. The wet husks retain some liquid. Use a vessel larger than the water portion so there is room for the cascara and safe pouring.
A clean French press can hold and separate the husks if you do not have a teapot. Use the cascara amounts above, not the ground-coffee recipe in that method guide. Pour the infusion away from the wet husks when the steep is finished.
What to Look for When Buying Cascara
Look for dried coffee-cherry cascara explicitly sold as a brewing ingredient, with a named supplier, origin or lot where available, and preparation and storage instructions. A coffee roaster's recipe for its own product is a useful starting point.
Do not assume that any leftover coffee-processing husk is a ready-to-brew food. Workshop describes selecting, drying and handling its cherry skins specifically for this product. Keep your purchased cascara according to its pack instructions and use clean brewing equipment.
Cascara sagrada is different. The European Medicines Agency's monograph identifies cascara bark as Rhamnus purshiana, also called Frangula purshiana. It is not coffee-cherry cascara and is not a substitute in this recipe. Check the full ingredient name when searching a marketplace.
Also distinguish dried cascara from a bottled cascara drink or a cascara-flavored syrup. A sweetened ready-to-drink product has its own serving, sugar and caffeine information; the dry-ingredient recipe here does not describe it.
Why Cascara Brewing Ratios Differ
Two documented supplier recipes make the difference visible:
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| Supplier | Cascara and water input | Steep |
|---|---|---|
| Workshop Coffee | 10 g in 250 ml freshly boiled water | 5 minutes |
| Onyx Bare Brew | 5 g in 250 ml hot water; its guide specifies 95°C | 4 minutes |
Workshop uses 40 g per liter of water input; Onyx uses 20 g per liter. That is twice the dry ingredient for the same water volume, calculated from the suppliers' published recipes. It does not establish twice the flavor or twice the caffeine: these are different products and different steeping conditions.
Start with your supplier's guidance. If the cup seems too concentrated, dilute the strained tea with a little hot water or use less cascara next time. If it seems weak, first confirm that you weighed the husks and timed the full steep. Change one variable at a time so you know what helped.
Cascara Caffeine, Calories and Sugar
Cascara contains caffeine, but a dependable milligram amount is not available for this particular recipe. Do not treat it as decaf simply because it looks like fruit tea. For a packaged drink with a caffeine declaration, use the stated serving on that product.
The unsweetened recipe adds no sugar. Its total calories and naturally extracted sugars are not established by the sources used here, so neither is presented as zero.
What the caffeine evidence does and does not show
EFSA's 2022 assessment reports 135–652 mg caffeine per 100 g of dry coffee husk across seven submitted batches. The highest result is approximately 4.8 times the lowest, before choosing a brewing recipe. This describes the assessed batches, not every cascara on sale.
The same assessment reports caffeine extraction of 78.2–100% in five batches brewed with 3 g per 100 ml at 95°C for 5 minutes. Our recipe uses a different dose, and we do not have an analysis of its particular cascara. Applying either an ordinary coffee reference or one of those batch results would create a false serving estimate.
Dry-husk composition also cannot be read directly as the nutrition of a strained infusion: the solids left in the strainer are not consumed. No total calorie or sugar number is assigned to this home brew.
Iced Cascara and Spiced Variations
For an iced version, brew and strain the tea first, then cool and refrigerate it before pouring over ice. Start with a modest amount of ice; melting ice dilutes the infusion. Add sweetener only after tasting, and count it separately if you track sugar.
For a stovetop ginger-and-cinnamon version, use the qishr recipe. It gives a separate two-serving method and explains Yemeni coffee-husk preparations. Adding spices to cascara can overlap with qishr; the useful distinction is the recipe and cultural context, not an invented rule that every cup must fit one category.
If you want the flavor of roasted beans instead, black coffee and iced coffee are the more direct starting points. Cascara is not a substitute for a known-caffeine product when a specific caffeine amount matters.
Common Questions
Is cascara tea coffee or tea?
Does cascara tea contain caffeine?
Can I brew cascara twice?
Is cascara naturally sweet?
Is coffee-cherry cascara the same as cascara sagrada?
Editor's Take
Sources and Further Reading
4 references
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