Cascara and kola nuts
As consumers look for naturally vitalising lifts rather than the artificial energy shot of, say, Red Bull, ingredients like cascara, kola nut and guarana are going to grow in popularity.
Derived from the Spanish word for ‘husk’, cascara is the outer skin of coffee cherries that contains lower amounts of caffeine than the beans themselves. Typically thrown away as a waste product, it can be used to make coffee cherry extracts and coffee cherry flour.
Swiss Café Royal’s cascara ice tea is brewed with 1.4 g per litre of coffee berry extract while British brand Firefly recently launched Superfly, what it describes as ‘a booze-free cocktail’ cascara.
It also has a botanical drink with 0.5% kola nut extract, umeboshi plum and ginger.
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