Coffee husks have a long history of being prepared for consumption aside from the roasted beans we're now so familiar with. In Central America, they bear the namecascara.In Africa, it is calledbuna.In the Arabic world, where this offering comes from, it goes byqish'rorqisher. Served hot or cold, the dried husk tea makes for a unique beverage that offers flavors both new and familiar to the coffee drinker. When our last cascara offering came out, education expert, sales rep and roasting pro Joe Marrocco wrotethis blog,and included some awesome ideas for how to prepare different iterations of the dried coffee cherry tea. We invite you to try these, or create your own! The flavors can be easily guided in different directions with the addition of spices and sweeteners so experimentation almost always yields interesting results.
This lot of qish'r comes from a Yemeni group called Al-Hamdani.Acting as a unified force of 32,000 farmers,Al-Hamdani makes much-needed financing accessible to alleviate the seasonal nature of a coffee farmer's income. They also work to ensure high quality standards and assist in the process of milling and sorting dried coffee cherry. In 2007, Al-Hamdani established a new dam to make irrigation available to the farmers in the region. We hope to see more farmers join together in movements like this that make the production of uniquehigh quality Yemeni coffees a financially viable reality.
