Trends and innovations 7 May 2026

Cascara: How the Coffee Cherry Stopped Being a Waste Product

In short: For most of the 200-year history of industrial coffee, the cherry pulp — about half the weight of every fruit — was thrown away. Now it has its own EU food authorisation, an annual conference side-event in Addis Ababa, and a Japanese drinks giant building product lines around it. This is the story of cascara — the dried coffee cherry — and why 2026 is the year it crosses from curiosity into category.

Here is the part nobody tells you about coffee: the fruit was always the point. The bean is a seed wrapped in something that, in any other agricultural setting, would be the headline. The pulp is bright red, sweet, perfumed, and present in roughly the same proportion as the flesh of a cherry around its pit. We just spent two centuries throwing it away. Cascara — the dried husk of the coffee cherry — is what happens when somebody finally asks why.

The waste paradox: throwing away half the harvest

To understand cascara, picture a coffee farm at harvest. A picker gathers ripe red cherries — sweet, slightly mucilaginous, vaguely reminiscent of stone fruit. The cherries go to a wet mill where the outer skin and pulp are stripped off, leaving the green seed (what eventually becomes the bean we roast). Historically that pulp went one of three places: composted on the farm, washed into rivers, or piled into open mounds where it slowly fermented. None of those outcomes added value. All of them represented half the picked weight of the harvest.

Cascara is what happens when farmers — and increasingly, importers and roasters — instead spread that pulp on raised beds, dry it under controlled conditions for one to two weeks, sort and bag it. Done well, it stops being waste and starts being a product. Done poorly, it tastes like wet hay or rope, which is why the supply side took a long time to mature.

The EU rule that made cascara a beverage on paper, not just on a menu

Here is the legal turning point most coffee drinkers never hear about. On 13 January 2022, the European Commission adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/47, which authorised the placing on the market of dried coffee cherry pulp (cascara) — both from Coffea arabica L. and Coffea canephora — as a traditional food from a third country, following an EFSA scientific opinion published in the EFSA Journal in 2022. As of 4 February 2022, cascara could be legally sold across the European Union as an ingredient for teas, infusions and flavoured ready-to-drink beverages.

That sounds dry. It isn't. Before that date, every European roaster who imported and sold cascara as a beverage was operating in a regulatory grey zone, and the bigger the roaster, the more reluctant. The 2022 regulation did not make cascara fashionable. It made it stockable, sellable, exportable. Four years later, that compounding effect is starting to show: more roasters lean in, more cafés write it on the menu, more drinks brands consider it a serious ingredient.

What it actually tastes like

The first time I drank a properly brewed cascara, I expected coffee-flavoured tea. What I got was closer to a hibiscus-mango infusion crossed with a dried cherry compote. The flavour wheel of cascara — drawn from independent sources including Fresh Cup magazine and roaster tasting notes — clusters around hibiscus, rose hip, red currant, ripe cherry, mango, raisin and a faint note of pipe tobacco. The texture is light, the acidity is bright but not sharp, and the finish is short with a faintly drying quality.

This profile varies — significantly — by origin and variety. A natural-process cascara from Ethiopia tastes nothing like a washed cascara from El Salvador. The same farm in Costa Rica can produce wildly different cascaras across two harvests depending on rainfall and drying conditions. In other words, cascara is now showing the same terroir sensitivity that drove the specialty coffee revolution itself. That is the reason serious tasters care.

Three signals that 2026 is cascara's turning point

I'm cautious about declaring trend years. But three signals from the past twelve months are converging in a way that's hard to ignore. First, the African Fine Coffees Conference & Exhibition in Addis Ababa hosted a side event in early February 2026 titled Sip, Savor, Sustain: Ethiopian Cascara, profiled by Barista Magazine in a feature published on 16 March 2026 about Ethiopia reclaiming cascara — locally known as hashara — for a new generation of drinkers. When an origin country starts narrating the product, the centre of gravity shifts.

Second, Kirin Holdings — the Japanese drinks group — announced in November 2025 that it had developed a fermented ingredient derived from coffee cherry pulp and skin, designed for functional beverages. Industrial R&D doesn't follow trends; it precedes them. Third, market analysts at Coherent Market Insights project North America at roughly 39% of the global cascara market in 2026, driven by the upcycled-food trend and third-wave specialty culture. Three signals from three continents point in the same direction: cascara is past curiosity.

Where to find it, and how to drink it

The simplest brew: 8 grams of cascara per 250 ml of water at around 92 °C, steeped 5 minutes, served in a clear glass to show the deep amber-red colour. That is the spec most specialty roasters publish on their packaging, and it produces a clean, cherry-forward result. Once you've tasted it that way, the more interesting applications open up: as a base for non-alcoholic cocktails — paired with tonic, ginger or citrus — as a syrup for pastry, as a sweetener for cold-brew lattes, or even reduced into a glaze for roasted vegetables.

If you're in Belgium and want to try it, the move in 2026 is the same as for any niche specialty product: ask the roaster who already buys high-quality green coffee from origin, because cascara only travels well as part of a relationship-based supply chain. Roasters with strong direct-trade practices are the most likely to have a small lot in stock, often as a seasonal release rather than a year-round product.

FAQ — Cascara, the short version

What is cascara, exactly?

Cascara is the dried pulp and skin of the coffee cherry — the fruit surrounding the coffee bean. The word comes from Spanish and literally means husk, peel or skin. After the cherry is depulped and the seeds removed for roasting, the leftover pulp can be dried in thin layers and brewed as an infusion. The resulting drink tastes more like a tisane than coffee, with notes of hibiscus, rose hip, cherry and tobacco.

Is cascara legal to sell as a beverage in the European Union?

Yes. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/47, adopted on 13 January 2022, authorised the placing on the market of dried coffee cherry pulp (cascara) of Coffea arabica L. and Coffea canephora as a traditional food from a third country. Cascara has been legal as a beverage ingredient — for teas, infusions and ready-to-drink flavoured drinks — across the European Union since 4 February 2022. National food authorities apply the same EU framework, so a roaster in Brussels, Berlin or Madrid can legally bottle and sell it.

How much caffeine is in a cup of cascara compared to coffee?

A cup of brewed cascara contains around 25 mg of caffeine, compared with roughly 80 mg in a typical cup of brewed coffee, according to figures cited by Tasting Table and several specialty roasters publishing their own analyses. That puts cascara in the same caffeine bracket as a cup of strong black tea — enough to feel something, not enough to keep most drinkers awake at night.