Novel beer in Bolivia helps ease altitude sickness
Source: AFP |
May 9, 2013, Thursday
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Print Edition
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A Bolivian brewer has come up with an innovative solution for quenching thirst and coping with altitude sickness: coca beer, based on the same leaf used to make cocaine.
Coca has only recently acquired its nefarious reputation: for millennia, people living along the Andes mountains have chewed coca leaves. The juice from the leaves has a mild stimulant effect, easing stomach pain and helping people from the lowlands cope with altitude sickness, known locally as soroche.
Visitors to high mountain cities like La Paz often rest and drink coca tea to deal with soroche. Now there is another option.
"As good Germans we love beer," said Hamburg native Malina, who sipped her beer along with her traveling companion Timo. The friends are students in their late 20s traveling across South America.
"There are many types in Germany, but this coca beer is good because here in La Paz it helps us handle altitude sickness," she said.
She compared the taste to Hefeweizen, a full-bodied unfiltered wheat beer from Bavaria.
Her companion agreed. "This is a very good beer, just like that from southern Germany, but not as heavy - and the alcohol gets to you faster," he said.
The beer in question is called Ch'ama, or "Strength" in the Aymara language of the Lake Titicaca area natives. It is made from malt, yeast, hops and soaked coca leaves, with no additives or preservatives.
The beer is popular among tourists "who want to try something new," said Alejandra Orihuela, owner of a bar named K'umara.
She said a group of German and American tourists liked it so much they came by several times a day for their coca beer, "as if it were breakfast and lunch."
Coca beer has been produced since 2011 by Cerveceria Vicos, a brewery based in Sucre.
The coca bush grows exclusively in the eastern slopes of the Andes. Bolivia is the world's third largest producer of coca leaves after Peru and Colombia.
Coca has only recently acquired its nefarious reputation: for millennia, people living along the Andes mountains have chewed coca leaves. The juice from the leaves has a mild stimulant effect, easing stomach pain and helping people from the lowlands cope with altitude sickness, known locally as soroche.
Visitors to high mountain cities like La Paz often rest and drink coca tea to deal with soroche. Now there is another option.
"As good Germans we love beer," said Hamburg native Malina, who sipped her beer along with her traveling companion Timo. The friends are students in their late 20s traveling across South America.
"There are many types in Germany, but this coca beer is good because here in La Paz it helps us handle altitude sickness," she said.
She compared the taste to Hefeweizen, a full-bodied unfiltered wheat beer from Bavaria.
Her companion agreed. "This is a very good beer, just like that from southern Germany, but not as heavy - and the alcohol gets to you faster," he said.
The beer in question is called Ch'ama, or "Strength" in the Aymara language of the Lake Titicaca area natives. It is made from malt, yeast, hops and soaked coca leaves, with no additives or preservatives.
The beer is popular among tourists "who want to try something new," said Alejandra Orihuela, owner of a bar named K'umara.
She said a group of German and American tourists liked it so much they came by several times a day for their coca beer, "as if it were breakfast and lunch."
Coca beer has been produced since 2011 by Cerveceria Vicos, a brewery based in Sucre.
The coca bush grows exclusively in the eastern slopes of the Andes. Bolivia is the world's third largest producer of coca leaves after Peru and Colombia.
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