Street Breakfast · Purple Corn Drink
Api con Pastel
Photo: Q'orikenti / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Vendors dye the drink with purple corn and clove, the same recipe Aymara traders carried down from Bolivia's altiplano along the old silver routes.
Api is a thick, hot purple-corn drink spiced with cinnamon and clove, ladled from steel drums by street vendors and paired with a fried pastel — a fritter dunked straight into the cup. It's the classic pre-dawn breakfast for market porters in Arica.
Why it's made this way: Arica's centuries-old role as a Pacific port for Bolivian and Aymara trade routes keeps this altiplano drink alive at sea level, unlike almost anywhere else in Chile.
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Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries.
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