Bolivia: Indigenous Drink - Coca Colla

Bolivia has come up with a fizzy beverage it says is the real thing: Coca Colla. The drink, made from the coca leaf, a mild stimulant that wards off fatigue and hunger, and has been in use in the Andes for thousands of years in cooking, medicine and religious rites, named after the indigenous Colla people from Bolivia's highlands, went on sale in mid-April across the South American country. Coca is also the raw ingredient of cocaine, the powerful narcotic. It is black and sweet and comes in a bottle with a red label, priced about $1.50 for half a litre. The socialist government vowed zero tolerance for cocaine but expelled drug enforcement administration agents, accusing them of spying, and encouraged Bolivian companies to use coca to make teas, syrups, toothpaste, liqueurs, sweets and cakes. If the coca spin-offs work out, the government said the area of land authorised for legal cultivation of the leaf may expand from 12,000 hectares to as much as 20,000 hectares.

Source: The Guardian, 14^th April 2010