Chicha is a traditional Latin American beverage made from corn, with roots stretching back thousands of years to the Inca Empire and beyond. The term covers a whole family of drinks, from mildly alcoholic fermented corn beer to refreshing non-alcoholic fruit punches made with purple corn. It remains a staple across Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and parts of Central America, served at festivals, in homes, and in small bars called chicherías.
Chicha de Jora: The Fermented Corn Beer
The most well-known variety is chicha de jora, a fermented beverage made from a specific type of corn called maíz morocho. The production process is elaborate and can take weeks from start to finish. First, corn kernels are soaked in water for three to eight days. The soaked grains are then drained and laid out on beds of local leaves at room temperature for one to two weeks until they sprout. These sprouted kernels, called jora, are sun-dried for another one to two weeks and then ground into flour, traditionally using stones.
The flour is mixed with water and boiled for one to two hours while being continuously strained through a straw basket. At this stage, brewers often add other ingredients to shape the flavor: cane sugar tablets (called chancaca), barley, cloves, cinnamon, quinoa, wheat flour, fava beans, or fruits. The liquid then ferments in clay vessels called tomin, a process that can last anywhere from 24 hours to 15 days depending on the desired strength and sourness. The result is a slightly cloudy, tangy, low-alcohol beer. Most chicha de jora falls in the range of 1% to 3% alcohol by volume, though longer fermentation can push it higher.
During fermentation, small bits of corn debris are continually drained, rubbed, and crumbled to create a sediment called borra. This sediment acts as a natural starter culture, packed with yeasts and bacteria that can be saved and used to kick off the next batch, similar to how sourdough bakers maintain a starter.
The Old Method: Chewing and Spitting
Before malting techniques became standard, chicha makers relied on a more direct method to convert corn starch into fermentable sugar: chewing. The process was straightforward. Cooked corn was chewed thoroughly and then spit into a communal fermentation vessel. Human saliva contains an enzyme that breaks down starch into simple sugars and shorter starch fragments. Research on salivary digestion shows this enzyme can convert up to 43% of the total starch in a food into simple sugars and partially digested chains during just a brief chewing cycle.
This wasn’t limited to corn chicha. In the Amazon, cassava-based chicha (often called masato) was traditionally prepared the same way. Women in Amazonian communities would boil sweet cassava, chew it, and spit the mixture into a vessel to ferment. Masato is considered deeply personal: serving a homemade batch to a guest is a sign of respect and hospitality. Some Amazonian recipes blend cassava with sweet potato, which adds natural sugars that speed up fermentation and balance out the sourness of pure cassava masato.
While the chewing method is still practiced in some rural and indigenous communities, most chicha today is made using the sprouting (malting) process or commercial enzyme powders that accomplish the same starch-to-sugar conversion.
Chicha Morada: The Non-Alcoholic Version
Chicha morada is an entirely different drink that shares only a name and a corn base with its fermented cousin. It’s a non-alcoholic punch made by boiling dried purple corn kernels with cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and pineapple rind in water for about 50 minutes. The liquid is strained, sweetened with sugar, and chilled. Just before serving, fresh lime juice and diced apple and pineapple are stirred in. It’s served cold over ice and tastes fruity, spiced, and lightly tart.
Purple corn gets its deep violet color from anthocyanins, the same pigments found in blueberries, red cabbage, and blackberries. The corn cobs contain roughly 252 milligrams of anthocyanins per 100 grams, significantly more than the kernels alone. These compounds act as antioxidants, and purple corn has attracted some research interest for potential cardiovascular benefits. One pilot study on Peruvian adults with mild-to-moderate high blood pressure found that participants taking a purple corn extract capsule showed decreased blood pressure readings over a three-week period, with the largest drops occurring in people who started with the highest readings. However, a separate study on Norwegian men using high doses of anthocyanins for four weeks found no significant blood pressure changes, so the evidence is preliminary and mixed.
Chicha morada is widely available bottled in Peru and in Latin American grocery stores internationally. Traditionally it was made fresh and consumed within 24 to 48 hours, sometimes stored under refrigeration. Industrial production now uses pasteurization and hot-fill processes, though manufacturers still face challenges with recontamination after the pasteurization step.
Nutritional Profile
Chicha de jora is a low-calorie drink. A 100-milliliter serving (about 3.5 fluid ounces) contains around 22 calories, 6 grams of carbohydrates (3 grams from sugar), and essentially no fat or protein. It has negligible amounts of sodium, calcium, and iron. It’s mostly water, corn sugars, and whatever alcohol has developed during fermentation. Chicha morada has a similar caloric profile, though the added sugar and fruit can increase the carbohydrate count depending on how it’s prepared.
Where Chicha Fits Into Daily Life
In the Andean highlands, chicha de jora is not just a casual drink. It plays a central role in festivals, agricultural ceremonies, and social gatherings. Chicherías, small establishments that serve fresh chicha, mark their presence by hanging a red flag or a pole with a red object (called a banderita) outside their door. Each chichería has its own recipe and fermentation rhythm, so the flavor varies from one to the next. A short fermentation of a day or two yields a mild, sweet, almost non-alcoholic version. A week or more produces something tangier, more sour, and noticeably stronger.
Chicha morada, by contrast, is an everyday refreshment in Peru. It’s as common as iced tea or lemonade would be in the United States, served alongside lunch at restaurants, sold in bottles at convenience stores, and made from scratch at home. Street vendors and juice stands often carry it year-round. Outside Latin America, you’re most likely to encounter chicha morada at Peruvian restaurants or find bottled versions and dried purple corn at specialty grocery stores.