Can’t decide between coffee and tea? Now you don’t have to choose. Move over, hard decisions! There’s a new drink in town, and it’s tea… made from coffee?

 

The drink is called cascara, Spanish for “peel” or “skin.” That’s because this new hybrid drink is steeped from the sweet flesh of the coffee berry.

 

Normally when coffee beans are harvested, the berry itself is thrown away after the seeds, which are the coffee beans, are extracted. But one coffee grower wondered if something could be done with the discarded fruit.

 

Aida Battelle figured out how to make use of these berries almost by accident. Out of curiosity, she tried putting some of the used berries in hot water and was amazed at the delicious drink it created. According to Fresh Cup Magazine, the flavor of the drink is sweet and fruity “with notes of rose hip, hibiscus, cherry, red currant, mango or even tobacco.”

 

Not only does this new use for the coffee berry provide an eco-friendly alternative to throwing away the fruit, but it gives us a third option in the coffee vs. tea debate. So which is it: coffee or tea? The answer is going to have to remain somewhere in the middle. To make the drink, the fruit is dried and steeped in hot water, but you can do this using the typical methods of either coffee or tea brewing. Apparently, you can brew cascara in a French press or use tea filters, making it impossible to determine whether we should call it coffee or tea. For now, it will just have to be both!