Thursday, January 20, 2011

The coca leaf

Storm in an Andean teacup

A battle over mastication

TOURISTS who visit Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, or Cusco, Peru’s former Inca seat, are routinely given welcome cups of coca tea to mitigate soroche (altitude sickness). For centuries, people who live in the high Andes have chewed coca leaves, whose alkaloids act as a mild stimulant and help to ward off cold and hunger. The Spanish conquistadors declared coca a tool of the devil, until they saw how it improved the work rate of the Indians they sent down the mines.

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