Cascara is legal. Almost no roaster can buy it.
Dried coffee-cherry pulp has been authorised in the European Union since February 2022. Supply is not the blocker either: Harar burns, composts or feeds to cattle thousands of tonnes of it every season.
The blocker is paper. A roaster cannot put cascara on a menu until a food-safety officer has read seven documents about it. Rimbaud sells the paper and the husk as one object.
No form, no address, no account. The lab panel, the label text and the dossier are open on the lot page. RIM-25/26-EH-04 is graded and has 340 kg on it.
RIM-25/26-EH-04
- Bisidimo drying station
- Ifa Bareda, Kombolcha woreda
- Dried fig, wild blueberry, hibiscus
- Syrupy, red wine
- 10.2% moisture
- 340 kg of 620 kg
Graded 18 January 2026. The lot page carries this sheet, its lab panel, its drying log and the dossier as a PDF. Nothing behind a form.
10.5%
18–25days
8turns a day
1,600–2,100m
A roaster does not refuse cascara. Their food-safety officer does.
Ask a head roaster in Berlin or Copenhagen and they want it on the menu tomorrow. It is coffee, from the same farms, and it earns more per cup than hibiscus. Then the request reaches the person who signs off food, and it stops.
That person is not being difficult. They have a HACCP plan and a regulation to satisfy, and they need seven specific things. Most cascara on the market arrives with none of them.
Many roasters have also been sold dusty, fermented husk swept off a mill floor. The second refusal is easier than the first.
- 01The specification for dried pulp of coffee cherry
- 02Moisture, measured on the lot that ships
- 03Caffeine, in mg per 100 ml of prepared infusion
- 04Ochratoxin A, from an accredited laboratory
- 05Microbiology: plate count, yeast and mould, E. coli, Salmonella
- 06Phytosanitary certificate and origin declaration
- 07The correct trade name printed on the packet
Rimbaud publishes all seven, per lot, before anyone asks.
Green-coffee importers
A token cascara line
One anonymous origin, thin documents, out of stock by February.
Bulk marketplaces
Container quantities
A buyer who wants 20 kg is quoted a shipping container.
Origin sellers on WhatsApp
A photograph of a sack
No lab panel, no licence on file, and no way to pay by card.
Doing nothing
The slot stays empty
Hibiscus goes on the menu instead, and the fruit is burned in Harar.
A link a roaster can forward, and the objection dies in one email.
| Moisture | ≤ 10.5% | Oven method, per lot |
|---|---|---|
| Caffeine | Declared | In mg per 100 ml of prepared infusion, per lot |
| Ochratoxin A | µg/kg | Accredited laboratory, per lot |
| Microbiology | 4 tests | TPC, yeast and mould, E. coli, Salmonella |
The certificates are lot-specific and open on the page. The dossier adds the origin declaration, the drying log, the export documents and the label kit as one PDF, and it says plainly which rows are the laboratory's and which are the station's.
NAME OF THE FOOD cascara (coffee cherry pulp) IN THE SAME FIELD OF VISION AS THE NAME High caffeine content. Not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women (___ mg per 100 ml <-- FILL THIS IN FROM THE ACCREDITED CERTIFICATE) DESCRIPTION Dried unroasted coffee cherry pulp of Coffea arabica L. Origin: Ethiopia, East Hararghe. Authorised in the European Union as a traditional food from a third country by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/47. PREPARATION (required for pulp sold as such) Use up to 6 g per 100 ml of water above 75 °C. Leave a few minutes, then pour through a strainer. STORAGE Store dry, below 20 °C, out of direct light. LOT: RIM-25/26-EH-04. Packed by Rimbaud, Harar, Ethiopia.
The name and the warning sentence are fixed word for word by the regulation. The caffeine figure is filled from the lot that ships to you. What your officer has to keep on file is set out in the compliance guide.
Qishr has been drunk here for centuries. We only wrote it down.
The husk comes from smallholder families in East Hararghe, between 1,600 m and 2,100 m, picking heirloom Arabica. It is whole cherry husk, sun-dried — never the wet output of a de-pulper, which is what makes the flat, smoky cup a roaster remembers.
Eighteen to twenty-five days on raised bamboo beds. Turned eight times a day. Off the beds under 10.5% moisture, then a laboratory sees it before a buyer does.
Ahmed holds his own export licence. The chain from cherry to courier is his, with no broker in it, which is why 20 kg can land at a roastery door at one delivered price.
| Day | Turns | Moisture % | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 8 | 62.0 | Clear |
| 12 | 8 | 22.7 | Clear |
| 22 | 8 | 10.2 | Clear |
Three lines of 22. The whole log is on the lot page — RIM-25/26-EH-04.
Delivered to the roastery. Not a freight problem handed over.
Prices publish with each lot, per destination zone, from quotes confirmed before the lot page goes live. Payment is by card at a hosted checkout, and there is no account to make.
A sample is 250 g of a named lot, couriered, and credited in full when you order kilos. It is paid, so it separates a roastery from a collector.
Sample 250 g
Couriered to your door. The $65 USD is credited in full against your first lot.
$65 USD
Lot 5 kg
Five kilos is a real order, not a trial.
$195 USD
Lot 20 kg
The weight most roasteries reorder on.
$525 USD
Lot 60 kg
For a menu that has stopped treating cascara as a curiosity.
$1,245 USD
Gulf and East Asia have their own delivered price on the lot page. Above 60 kg, Ahmed works the freight out by hand and sends one fixed price — ask for it here.
This page was built to be forwarded.
Send it to the person who has to approve the product. The dossier, the label text and the drying log are all open, with nothing behind a form.