Bolivia launches fizzy drink made with coca leaf

[Judi Lynn]

Jan 19, 2011
Bolivia launches fizzy drink made with coca leaf

LA PAZ - BOLIVIA, which is pushing for the decriminalisation of the coca leaf, launched a soft drink made from the plant on Tuesday, the second of its kind.

The drink, called 'Coca Brynco,' was launched at an official ceremony in La Paz, emphasising support from Evo Morales's government for the venture.

Intended to rival its more famous US cousin Coca Cola, the fizzy drink, much like last year's introduction of Coca Colla, is at the center of a plan from coca growers in the central rural Bolivian province of Chapare to boost coca production.

The drink has been 'well received in market research and at tastings,' company head Johnny Vargas told state news agency ABI. La Paz has moved in recent years to expand coca cultivation, with Mr Morales - who also heads the coca growers' union in the Chapare - even bringing attention to the plant when he chewed it at UN meets.

More:
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_625778.html

[social_critic]

1. I drank coca tea, and I suppose this stuff will taste like fizzy tea

Coca tea was OK, we used it when we climbed beyond 3500 meters or so. But I can't imagine this being more than a gimmick, it'll taste like fizzy tea. I imported a suitcase full of the stuff right through LA airport, lucky for me they didn't open my suitcase, because it was sitting right there in the open, box after box after box. My sister in law thought it was so cool, she tried to sniff the leaves. I didn't know it was illegal.

[Bacchus39]

2. I brought some coca candy back from Peru, it gave a slight numbness in the mouth

it tasted like coca which has a pretty awful taste actually. tried the tea several times as well. I imagine the softdrink is loaded with sugar so it probably will mask the taste somewhat unless its supposed to be coca flavored.

[Peace Patriot]

3. The U.S. is opposing decriminalization of the coca leaf...

...which is, course, much different from cocaine (a highly processed, concentrated product); coca leaves give only a mild high like coffee, are much more nutritious than coffee and a very important Indigenous medicine.

But the U.S. wants everything criminalized--except true crime, like slaughtering a hundred thousand innocent people to steal their oil--because it is so very, very lucrative to our war profiteers, in particular--the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" being their backup gravy train--and also bloats the profits of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, and the prison-industrial complex (as does the criminalization of marijuana, another innocent leaf) AND of the U.S. multinational corporate pushers of other products. For instance, coca leaf farming keeps food farmers producing healthy, organic, local food for their families and communities, which takes profits from junk food and poisoned food purveyors--and all the pesticides and other horrors of that--and militates against importation of Big Ag frankenfood and the dumping of that garbage on local markets to destroy local farmers. The U.S. government, of course, aids and abets these horrendous practices in every way, including criminalizing the coca leaf.

A very good move by Bolivia--to market a coca leaf soft drink and challenge all these lies and dirty doings of the multinationals that are destroying lives, democracy and Mother Earth.