Bold New ‘Coffee Flour’ is Your Answer to Sustainable, Gluten-Free Pasta

Coffee cherries must first be converted from fruit to bean. Beans are separated from the pulp, dried, hulled, roasted, ground and finally brewed into your cup of morning joe. However what happens to the remnants at the start of this process — the pulp — is another story. The remainder of coffee cherries are discarded, an unfortunate result of a mega industry that leads to waste and pollution.

Now, CF Global, a startup in Seattle (naturally) has made a bold proposition: Why not take the discarded coffee cherries and transform them into food? Rather than getting tossed and pushed into rivers, as is often the case, the pulp is dried and milled into a flour that CF Global claims can be used in pasta and other baked goods. The coffee flour can even be used as a distinct dry rub for meats and a thickener for sauces.

While there’s not enough caffeine in the flour to have any real effect, The Atlantic points out that Coffee Flour is a step in the right direction, “a way to extract value from something that has traditionally been treated as trash.” The new product isn’t set to hit shelves until 2015, but you can get a closer peek here: