Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America.

It is a cash crop in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru.

It’s also used in many traditional Andean cultures, as well as the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.

Coca is known throughout the world for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine.

The alkaloid content of coca leaves is low, between 0.25% and 0.77%, which means that chewing the leaves or drinking coca tea does not produce the intense high (euphoria, megalomania, depression) people experience with cocaine.

When chewed, they produce a pleasurable numbness in the mouth, and have a pleasant, pungent taste.

The coca leaf is used to make medicine.

People chew coca leaves to relieve hunger and fatigue and to enhance physical performance.

Coca extracts are used for stimulating stomach function, causing sedation, and treating asthma, colds, and other ailments.

Coca tea is used for altitude sickness in the Peruvian Andes and elsewhere.

In manufacturing, coca extract with the cocaine removed is used to flavour cola drinks and food products.