Coffee Rating:
3 out of 5 coffee cups

Hula Daddy’s Kona Cascara Coffee Tea
Medium-Dark Roast: Whole Bean
Price: $19.95 for an 8-ounce bag

Making Tea from Coffee

When is coffee not coffee? When it’s tea. Or at least that’s what we learned when we tried Hula Daddy‘s Kona Cascara Coffee Tea. These growers of Kona coffee sent us a bag of their Kona Cascara to try, so we put away the French press and fired up the old tea pot to gave it a taste.

This “coffee tea” is actually made from the fruit of the Kona coffee tree after they’ve taken the coffee bean out of it, leaving the fruity bits that formerly enveloped that yet-to-ripen bean. Since this product is not roasted like a regular coffee, there are none of the usual coffee notes in its aroma; rather, it has a much more vegetative smell, not unlike some herbal teas, suggesting fruit.

To brew the tea, you heat water and pour it over the little bits, in much the same way you would brew a pot of regular loose tea, letting it steep for around five minutes. As with the aroma, there is really no coffee taste to the tea. Indeed, the predominant notes are citrus and honey, making the coffee tea taste not unlike an amped-up version of a chamomile or other herbal tea. Although we generally like our tea like our coffee–no additives, thank you–we’re guessing that a touch of sweetener, maybe a bit of sugar or a drizzle of honey, might help bring out more of the tea’s flavor.

Overall Hula Daddy Kona Cascara Coffee Tea makes for an interesting drink. We’re big fans of coffee and less so of tea, so we were hoping for at least a bit of coffee flavor, and that just wasn’t there. It is a clever way to use what must normally be just a waste product of the coffee growing and roasting process, and if tea is your thing, you just might enjoy a pot yourself.

Hula Daddy Kona Cascara Coffee Tea is available from Hula Daddy for $19.95 for a half-pound (8 ounce) bag.