Local Drinks

1. Aqha

   Aqha (chicha, fermented maize beer)

   Usage

   The cloudy beer of fermented sprouted maize, drunk since before the Inca in ritual and everyday life. Houses that sell it hang a red flag or red bag at the door. Low in alcohol, but it is unpasteurised home brew — go easy if your stomach is delicate or you have just arrived at altitude

   Grammar Note

   The ethanol-bearing drink called aqha or aswa is made by fermenting a mash of lightly sprouted maize. It corresponds to "corn liquor, chicha". "Aswa" is a variant, used towards Ayacucho and Bolivia.

2. Kuka mati

   Kuka mati (coca-leaf tea)

   Usage

   Usually free in the lobby of hotels in Cusco, Puno and La Paz, and pressed on you the day you arrive for altitude sickness (soroche). Legal inside Peru and Bolivia, but taking the leaves or the tea bags out of the country is illegal in most others and can show up on a drug test. Drink it there; do not pack it

   Grammar Note

   Kuka mati is a herbal tea made from the fresh or dried leaves of the coca plant; also written Kuka shay or Kuka q'uñi yaku. "mati" originally means the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) and the cup made from it, hence the infusion drunk from it

3. Api

   Api (hot purple-maize drink)

   Usage

   Purple maize simmered with cloves and citrus peel into a thick, sweet, hot drink. A breakfast fixture in the Bolivian highlands (La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosí), sold with a fried pastel. It is the first thing steaming in the market before dawn

   Grammar Note

   The noun has two senses — "porridge, soup, pudding" and "drink made from purple maize, cloves, and citrus peel" — plus an adjective "soft, smooth"

4. Muña

   Muña (Andean mint, drunk as an infusion)

   Usage

   A highland mint. Alongside coca tea it is the infusion served in lodgings and eateries, taken for a heavy stomach and for indigestion at altitude. ⚠ It is not certain that Quechua has a single word for "muña tea", so order it in Spanish as "mate de muña"; the plant name on its own works for pointing

   Grammar Note

   Muña (genus Minthostachys, syn. Menthostachys) is a shrub growing in South America, a medicinal plant (hampi yura). Related species (Khuñu muña, Sach'a muña) are likewise classed as medicinal plants

5. Mati upyana

   Mati upyana (yerba mate, drunk from a gourd)

   Usage

   Leaves in a gourd cup (mati), drunk through a metal straw (bombilla) and passed around. More a custom south of Peru and Bolivia — in the highlands you will far more often be offered kuka mati or muña. When the gourd comes to you, finish it and hand it back

   Grammar Note

   Guarani kaaiguá. A stimulating, caffeine-bearing drink made in a gourd cup from the dried leaves of mati wayusa (Ilex paraguariensis). "upyana" is upyay (to drink) plus the instrument/object suffix -na, i.e. "something to drink"

6. Kaphiy

   Coffee

   Usage

   In highland eateries it often arrives as a small bottle of concentrate (esencia) plus a jug of hot water, for you to dilute yourself. Peru's coffee is grown in the lowlands (Chanchamayo, northern Cusco) and is not always available up in the mountains

   Grammar Note

   A stimulating drink containing caffeine (kaphiyna), made from the fruit of the coffee plant; Kafiy is given as a variant. k'anchay means "light, to shine" and has nothing to do with coffee

7. Tiy

   Tea

   Usage

   Tea in the narrow sense — from the tea plant. ⚠ In the Andes "mate" covers herbal infusions in general and is not this word. Point at this one if you want actual tea

   Grammar Note

   Tiy or Shay (Chinese cha (茶)); Shay is a variant. The "shay" in "Kuka shay" is this word

8. Sirwisa

   Beer

   Usage

   ⚠ At 3,000–4,000 m it hits fast and its effects overlap with altitude sickness. Best avoided for the first day or two after arriving. Each city has its own brand — Cusqueña in Cusco, Arequipeña in Arequipa, Paceña in La Paz

   Grammar Note

   From Spanish cerveza. "Sirwisata upyaspaqa machanchik" (drinking beer makes us drunk). Reshaping a loan to end in a vowel (cerveza → sirwisa) is the standard Quechua pattern; the Spanish spelling "Cerveza" is also used

9. Hayaq yaku

   Hayaq yaku (aguardiente, cane spirit, "trago")

   Usage

   ⚠ Very strong. It is passed around at festivals and rituals and can be awkward to refuse — taking a small sip and handing the cup back is the graceful way out. ⚠ More dangerous still at altitude. Pisco (Pisqu kañasqa) belongs to this class (44°)

   Grammar Note

   Also called aguardiente (Spanish), firewater (English), Kañasu or Tragu. A distilled spirit above one third alcohol with a sharp aroma. Literally "burning water", built like English firewater; hayaq is the same root as Haya "spicy hot"

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