You Are Here: Home, Inca daily life, Inca tea

Inca Tea

The history of the Inca tea is base in the coca plant. The real name of this plant is Khoka, word that means tree and is original from the Aymara tribe. Today the real name of this plant is Koka Kintu. It's important that you understand the difference between coca and cocaine. The indigenous people from the Andes are using the coca plant for more than 6000 years. The cocaine is a 140 years old European invention. Its need forty one chemicals to extract cocaine from the coca leaf and you will need 110 kilos of leaves for 600 grams of cocaine.

The coca leaf contains fourteen different chemical compounds; according to scientific studies, the coca leaf contains less than 0.08 percent of cocaine. The cocaine alkaloid enters its active form only when is mix with saliva. So, one cup of Inca tea contains zero amount of cocaine. It's because the coca plant is not cocaine. The benefits of the coca leaf are calcium (more than 2000 mg compared to 120 mg of milk), vitamin A, complex B (including B-12), zinc, magnesium and potassium. The coca leaf is unique food complement, it's easy to assimilate and with special medicinal properties.

Here we describe the uses of the coca leaf: The tender leaves in salad for direct consumption, highest antioxidant source. The dried leaves for chewing, great energy source, nutrition and above all, its medicinal alkaloids. The dried leaves, toasted and in powder, as a direct source of easily absorbable nutrients and energy. The dried leaves in infusion (Inca tea), is the best known digestive, great fat burner and antidepressant. Peruvian doctors recommend three cups per day.

The nutritional power of the Inca tea and the benefits of chewing coca leafs are proof by a simple example. If you replace chewing the coca leaves with coffee, the farmers in the Andes could not finish their work hours and will end suffering from nerves. The coca leaves provide calories and nutrients needed to keep the energy, the farmers need during the hours of work. Coffee on the contrary, has no nutrients or calories to produce such energy.

People believe that drinking Inca tea or chewing coca leaves only remove the hunger. Then as an experiment, we could replace the coca leaves, with amphetamines. Then, we will see that within a few days of the change, the farmers in the Andes will not be able to lift his foot plough to work. It's because the amphetamines takes away the hunger but not fed the person like the coca leaves

Each 100 grams of coca leaves provides 305 calories, 19 grams of protein, 5 grams of fat, 46 grams of carbohydrate. 1.4 grams of vitamin C, 11,000 IU of vitamin A and 1.5 grams of calcium. Ones again the myth, build by ignorant people about this plant create barriers to understand the real potential of the coca plant.

Scientist discovers the cocaine alkaloid in 1858. In 1949 an investigation committee organize by United Nations declare for no reason the coca plant was a harmful plant. In 1961 United States made all necessary arrangement to persuade the world convention on narcotics and the United Nations to take the official position that chew coca or drinking Inca tea, is a form of drug addiction. They approve the order despite of no evidence of addictive conditions in the coca leaves consumers.

Chewing coca leaves or drinking Inca tea is banned inside the Chilean territory. It's because in Chile there is a deep ignorance of the difference between the nutritional benefits of the coca plant and consuming cocaine. The coca leaf is not guilty of drug addiction as well as the grape is not guilty of alcoholism. As incredible as it sounds, all the benefits of this plant are only known in Peru and Bolivia. Outside from Peru and Bolivia, when you mention coca leaves, it is immediately related with narcotics, due a plain ignorance about the benefits of the coca plant.

Peruvian labs have use coca leaves to create more than 30 different products such as shampoo, toothpaste, infusions (Inca tea) and various medicaments. The use of coca leaves outside Peru or Bolivia is a crime; the export of coca leaves is forbidden. Ironically, the only legal export of coca leaves to the United States is made by the Stephan Company. They import each year around 175,000 kilos of coca leaves, to produce a cocaine serum to give flavor to the Coca Cola.