Coffee cherry skins: Nature’s wasted superfood
Coffee have many health benefits, including protecting against Parkinson’s Disease, lower chances of liver disease and even certain types of cancer.
But it seems that we have been getting rid of the main antioxidant player in the coffee cherry all this time: the skins.
Coffee cherry skins do nothing for the flavour of the coffee you drink, in fact they are more likely to harm the taste, hence why they have been removed for as long as people have been cultivating coffee.
It turns out that the juicy, sweet skin of the coffee cherry boasts eight times the antioxidants found in blueberries.
Most growers use cherry skins as fertiliser when removed, but coffee growers have missed out on the valuable offering immune-boosting, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties without even realising the value of their ‘fertiliser’.
The health benefits are so pronounced that Hawaii-based company, KonaRed, has developed a series of juices using the coffee cherry with the help of a local coffee growing farm.
It’s not just the food and drink industry that are trying to cash in on coffee cherry skins, dermatologists have also sought to utilise the fruit to enhance the skin of beauty product buyers around the world.
The secret to younger looking skin could be the humble coffee cherry, which has been discarded by farmers for almost as long as coffee has been grown.
Many people will be shocked to learn that coffee comes from a fruit, even more so that the fruit from which it is derived is one of the world’s best kept superfood secrets.
Maybe we will see a rise in the usage of the coffee cherry in our day-to-day products, and with large portions of the planet without a coffee farm around the corner, we hope to see more products boasting the fruit in the coming years.