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Coffee is the great
national drink, served strong, hot and sweet in small mugs or little
cups and drunk
quickly. By far the best coffee is found in São Paulo and points
south. You are never far from a cafézinho (as these small cups of
coffee are known; café refers to coffee in its raw state). Coffee is
sold from flasks in the street, in lanchonetes and bars, and in
restaurants, where it comes free after the meal. The best way to
start your day is with café com leite, hot milk with coffee added to
taste. Decaffeinated coffee is almost impossible to find in
restaurants, and even difficult in delicatessens.
Tea ( chá) is surprisingly good. Try chá mate, a strong green tea
with a noticeable caffeine hit, or one of the wide variety of herbal
teas, most notably that made from guaraná. One highly recommended
way to take tea is using the chimarrão , very common in southern
Brazil: a gourd filled with chá mate and boiling water, sucked
through a silver straw. It needs some practice to avoid burning your
lips, but once you get used to it is a wonderfully refreshing way to
take tea.
The great variety of fruit in Brazil is put to excellent use in
sucos: fruit is popped into a liquidizer with sugar and crushed ice
to make a deliciously refreshing drink. Made with milk rather than
water it becomes a vitamina. Most lanchonetes and bars sell sucos
and vitaminas, but for the full variety you should visit a
specialist casa de sucos , which are found in most town centres.
Widely available, and the best option to quench a thirst, are suco
de maracujá, passion fruit, and suco de limão, lime. In the North
and Northeast, try graviola, bacuri and cupuaçu. Sugar will always
to be added to a suco unless you ask for it sem açúcar; some,
notably maracujá and limão, are undrinkable without.
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Soft drinks are the regular products of corporate capitalism and all
the usual brands are available. Outshining them all, though, is a
local variety, guaraná , a fizzy and very sweet drink made out of
Amazonian berries. An energy-loaded powder is made from the same
berries and sold in health stores in the developed world -
basically, the effect is like a smooth release of caffeine without
the jitters.
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Brazil
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Brazil
Where To Go
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Getting there
Visas,
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Eating And Drinking
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Soft drinks, hot drinks
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