Coffee beans are the pit inside the fruit that coffee bushes produce. The fruity part (the "cherry") can be dried and then is called "cascara" and can be used in tea and in other recipes. Cascara is caffeinated and is what you would taste if you were strolling past a coffee bush and decided to eat a coffee cherry. It has a distinct fruity and black tea flavor that you sometimes taste in a honey process or natural processed coffee. I enjoy steeping it like tea, sometime drinking it hot, sometimes iced. Sometimes adding sugar, often not. It has a lemony black cherry tea taste that is crisp, sweet, refreshing and caffeinated. There are some prune, hibiscus, honey notes as well. I've also heard of people using it to make cascara ice cream, adding it to tea blends, and mulling it with the spices of orange, cinnamon, and cloves. There are sometimes concerns about the sanitary nature of cascara, but this coffee was grown specifically to be sold as cascara and utmost care was taken to keep it sanitary. Ingredients: Costa Rica Cascara Tasting Notes: Lemon, Tea, Cherry, Prune, Honey, Rose Steep: 2 Tbsp of tea for every 12oz water. Water temperature: 205. Sweetener optional. Steep time 4-5 minutes.
