The Paez Indians in south-western Colombia will launch Coca Sek this week, a fizzy drink based on coca leaves consumed for centuries by native Colombian peoples. The Paez, who live in the Calderas reserve, began their efforts to sanitise the use of the coca leaf, the main ingredient in cocaine, by selling crushed dried coca leaves for use as tea.
”People associate coca with cocaine. We wanted to convince people that coca is not the same as the drug and allow indigenous people to be proud of the leaf,” said David Curtido, who leads the tea and soft-drink projects.
The Paez grow coca legally for traditional uses and Curtido said that with the soft drink and the tea they are seeking to make coca consumption an everyday thing.
”When we made the first taste tests [of the soft drink] among the community, we didn’t tell people what was in the bottle. People tasted it and they were fascinated. They immediately recognised it as coca and appreciated that we are giving added value to their much-reviled plant,” Curtido said.
The drink is the colour of cider, has a tea-like aroma and is described as tasting like a cross between lemonade and ginger ale. Curtido said it already has been sampled by many Colombians and won wide approval.
He said Coca Sek offers a homegrown answer to Coca-Cola. Kirsten Watt, a Coca-Cola spokesperson in Atlanta, said such competitors are welcome.
”They’re entitled to create beverages as they see fit,” she told The Associated Press.
As for its own ingredients, Coca-Cola was tight-lipped.
”Cocaine has never been an ingredient,” Watt said, though she declined to say whether cocaine-free coca extract is part of the drink’s secret recipe, as has been widely reported.
”We just can’t talk about the ingredients, the specific flavour composition,” she said.
Coca Sek will be bottled in the city of Popayán near the Paez reserve and distribution will be limited, initially, to the surrounding area.
Curtido said that, eventually, he wants to see the drink distributed in Colombia’s bigger cities.
But getting Coca Sek on to the international market will be difficult. Coca is on the United Nations list of dangerous substances and international trade in the leaf and its products is strictly limited.
Illegal coca plantations in Colombia have been the target of a multimillion-dollar aerial fumigation programme bankrolled by the United States. Colombia is the world’s biggest exporter of cocaine. — Guardian Unlimited Â