Coffee cherry soda
Coffee cherry soda is a perfect pick me up on a hot afternoon. Cascara is the dried fruit of the coffee cherry. To make coffee cherry soda, you simply brew up a cascara concentrate for the fridge, which you can mix with sparkling water on demand for a delicious and refreshing spritzer. Coffee cherry tea tastes vaguely like rose hips, and has about 25% of the caffeine of coffee itself. It is also reputed to have additional stimulants not found in coffee.
Here’s a recipe for making cascara concentrate:
1. Start heating about 1 liter of water to 205° (just off boil)
2. Measure out 120 grams of cascara
3. Put the dry cascara in a brewing vessel
4. Add 60 grams of organic cane sugar (or similar) to the vessel
5. Add 900 grams of 205° water to the brewing vessel
6. Stir and let steep for 15 minutes
7. Decant & filter into a storage vessel and refrigerate
You can use whatever vessel(s) you have handy for brewing and storing the cascara concentrate. In my case, I do my bulk brewing a large Chemex, as shown here:
After the brewing is complete, I decant the concentrate into an Eva Cafe Solo,as shown here:
The Eva Solo not only stores nicely in the fridge, but also has an integral metal filter to keep the coffee cherries out of the storage vessel. The concentrate shown here is enough to make 10 to 15 glasses of coffee cherry soda.
To serve coffee cherry soda, simply add sparkling water and cascara concentrate to taste. Try a ratio between 4:1 or 6:1and go from there. Enjoy!