Maca.
Grown at around 4,000 metres, where little else will. Eaten in the Andes for thousands of years.
Maca grows on the puna of central Peru, one of the highest-growing crops in the world. Thin air, frost at night, strong sun by day. Maca takes so much from the soil that, traditionally, the land is left to rest for five to ten years before maca is planted there again.
In Peru it is food, not a supplement. Ours is yellow maca, the most widely grown of its three colours, gently cooked before milling for a rounder, maltier taste.
“When I started Macarena, I was drinking four or five espressos a day. Today it’s one. The rest of the day is Macarena.”
