Coca tea is made by steeping about 1 gram of dried coca leaves in hot water for a few minutes, much like any herbal tea. In Peru and Bolivia, where the drink has been consumed for centuries, it’s sold in pre-portioned tea bags and brewed in homes, hotels, and street markets as casually as green tea is elsewhere. The preparation is simple, but the legal, nutritional, and practical details are worth understanding before you brew a cup.
Basic Brewing Method
A standard cup of coca tea uses roughly 1 gram of dried coca leaf per 180 ml (about 6 ounces) of water. Peruvian tea bags average 1.09 grams of leaf material, while Bolivian bags tend to be slightly smaller at around 0.82 grams. If you’re working with loose leaves rather than bags, a rounded teaspoon is a reasonable approximation of one gram.
Heat your water to about 94°C (just below boiling, around 200°F). Pour it over the leaves or tea bag and steep for 3 minutes, then remove the leaves. The result is a mild, yellowish-green tea with a slightly grassy, bitter flavor. Some people steep for up to 5 minutes for a stronger brew, though the taste becomes more astringent. You can add honey or sugar to soften the bitterness.
Traditional Andean Additions
In the Andes, coca leaves are often combined with a substance called llipta, a mixture of lime (calcium oxide) and ash, traditionally made from burned quinoa or kiwicha stalks. Llipta is alkaline, and adding a small pinch to the tea raises the pH, which helps extract more of the active compounds from the leaves and improves absorption. A modern substitute that works on the same principle is a tiny pinch of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) added to the water before or during steeping.
This alkaline addition is more common when chewing whole leaves than when brewing tea, but some traditional preparations include it in the cup as well. It subtly changes the flavor profile and may increase the mild stimulant effect.
What Coca Tea Does in Your Body
Coca tea acts as a mild stimulant, similar in strength to a cup of coffee or strong black tea. The leaves contain small amounts of naturally occurring alkaloids, but the concentration in a brewed cup is far lower than in any processed form. The stimulant effect is gentle: slightly increased alertness, reduced appetite, and a faint numbing sensation on the lips and tongue.
The leaves themselves are surprisingly nutrient-dense. Per 100 grams, dried coca leaf contains roughly 990 to 1,033 mg of calcium, about 29 mg of iron, significant beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A), and around 17 mg of vitamin E, along with 20 grams of protein. Of course, a single tea bag contains only about 1 gram of leaf, so a cup of tea delivers only trace amounts of these nutrients. The nutritional profile is more relevant for people who chew large quantities of leaves daily, as many Andean laborers traditionally do.
Coca Tea and Altitude Sickness
Coca tea is widely recommended to travelers arriving at high-altitude cities like Cusco, La Paz, and Quito. The evidence behind this tradition is real but nuanced. Studies on coca leaf chewing found that it shifts the body’s energy metabolism during physical exertion at altitude, pushing the body to burn fatty acids for fuel instead of relying on the normal glucose pathway. This biochemical shift appears to enhance sustained physical performance at elevation.
That said, standard physiological markers like blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and heart rate didn’t show significant differences between coca users and non-users in controlled studies. The benefit seems to be metabolic and subjective rather than a dramatic change in how your body handles low oxygen. Many travelers still report that coca tea eases headache and nausea at altitude, and the mild stimulant effect may simply help counteract the fatigue that comes with reduced oxygen.
Legal Status Outside South America
This is the most important practical detail for many readers. The coca leaf is classified as a Schedule I substance under the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the same schedule that includes cocaine itself. This means that in the United States, Canada, most of Europe, and many other countries, possessing whole coca leaves or coca tea bags is illegal, even though the alkaloid content in a tea bag is minimal.
Bolivia formally carved out an exception in 2013, and both Bolivia and Peru permit domestic cultivation, sale, and consumption of coca leaf products. In those countries, coca tea bags are sold in grocery stores and served in hotel lobbies. But importing them across most international borders is a crime, regardless of intent. Some travelers unknowingly pack coca tea bags as souvenirs and face confiscation or legal trouble at customs.
Drug Testing Risk
Even a single cup of coca tea will cause you to test positive for cocaine metabolites on a standard urine drug screen. The body processes the alkaloids in coca tea into the same metabolite (benzoylecgonine) that labs look for when testing for cocaine use. There is no way to distinguish between coca tea consumption and cocaine use on a standard immunoassay test. If you face workplace drug testing, military screening, or any situation where a positive result has consequences, drinking coca tea is a significant risk. Metabolites can remain detectable for several days after even one cup.
Safety Considerations
For most healthy adults, a cup or two of coca tea poses minimal risk, comparable to drinking coffee. The alkaloid content in brewed tea is extremely small. However, the active compounds are still stimulants that affect the cardiovascular system, and a few interactions are worth knowing about.
Drinking alcohol alongside coca tea can produce a compound called cocaethylene, which has a stronger effect on the heart’s electrical system than either substance alone. People with pre-existing heart conditions, particularly arrhythmias, have a lower threshold for stimulant-related cardiac events. Pregnant women, people with high blood pressure, and those taking medications that affect heart rhythm should be cautious. The amounts involved in casual tea drinking are small, but combining stimulants with underlying cardiac issues is a well-documented risk pattern.