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Market Drink · Corn And Cacao Cooler

Tiste

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Tiste predates the Spanish conquest — it descends directly from a cacao-and-toasted-corn drink brewed by the Chorotega people who settled the shores of Lake Nicaragua.

Toasted corn and cacao are ground together into a dry mix, then whisked with water and sugar over ice into a gritty, chocolatey cooler. It is ladled from big glass jars by market vendors in Granada's Mercado Municipal.

Why it's made this way: Granada sits in the heart of former Chorotega territory along Lake Cocibolca, and the drink remains most strongly rooted in the city's markets and Pacific lakeside towns.
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