On a sidewalk in a middle-class neighborhood in the city of Colima, the Bejarano family sells tuba, a refreshing fermented drink made from the fresh, sweet sap of the coconut tree.
Sisters Amairani and Karla Bejarano, right, sell tuba on a street in Colima, Mexico.
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
It's a bright morning, the heat rising with the sun, as drivers stop and grab takeaway cups. They ask for composite tuba, with crushed red berries and diced apple, which gives it an attractive pink color. Topped with ice and peanut chips, it's a perfect cooler for everyday life on the humid Pacific coast.
“I drink it out of tradition, because it's fresh, it has probiotics, because of its flavor and its benefits,” said José Maciel, 53, an office worker who stops for a cup. And, he smiles, “you can add mezcal or tequila to enjoy the freshness of a warm afternoon.”
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The tuba, or tuba, is one of the many unknown wonders of the small state of Colima, a place that barely goes unnoticed on the radar of most international and even national tourists. But a recent trip showed me that little-known Colima is packed with fascinating food and drink found only here, and has a thriving culinary scene.
The drink's origins date back to 1565, when the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade route began between Mexico and the Philippines, permanently altering the culinary trajectories of both countries. On the one hand, the route carried avocado and papaya from Mexico to Asia. On the other hand, the galleons sent the Asian coconut palm to Mexico.
How is the tuba made? Start with the palm leaves. Artisans climb the trunks with ropes and spikes to reach the greenish base of each frond. They cut the skin and hang receptacles to collect the dripping white sap. Soon, this liquid ferments into a spicy drink with a touch of viscosity, something like Mexico's pulque. It doesn't taste like coconut at all, and can also take on a hint of alcohol if fermented enough, like tepache or tejuino.
The tuba is experiencing something of a culinary renaissance in Colima in recent years. It is sold on street corners from vendors with large pumpkins, and is also seen mixed with spirits on cocktail menus at upscale restaurants across the state.
The sun sets over a Pacific beach in Manzanillo, Colima's main port.
(Daniel Hernandez/Los Angeles Times)
If this is your first time reading about the drink, you're probably not alone. Colima suffers from a certain degree of invisibility. Dominated by the imposing Colima volcano complex and home to the important industrial port of Manzanillo, Colima is Mexico's smallest state in terms of population, with only about 731,000 people.
It also has one of those from Mexico. higher homicide ratessince it is trapped between Jalisco and Michoacán, ravaged by violence. According to a May report from the news site The Broken ChairThere exists in Colima a “pax narca” or negotiated calm between the main criminal groups fighting for control of larger neighboring states. Its worst homicide figures are due to the proportion of deaths in a small population of less than a million people.
The contradiction is jarring. Unlike Jalisco or Michoacán, Colima almost never sees spectacular shootings. The streets and highways are not heavily patrolled by military or federal forces. As a visitor, ironically, I felt safer here than on multiple visits to Jalisco or Michoacán. Everyday life seems relaxed.
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A fervent local A culinary movement is brewing.with chef-driven restaurants and traditional regional foods like those from Colima dry pozolethe state's signature dish with “dry” pozole ingredients without broth. Colima is home to success stories such as Cervecería de Colima, the award-winning brewery considered among the better overall in Mexico today.
“Colima is a true gem for being so small and so little known. That is its virtue,” says chef Nico Mejía, a local star. “We have the sea, the mountains, the rainforest, the lagoons, very close in lands mineralized by volcanoes. These create ingredients that are unique in the state.”
“And,” he adds, “their gastronomy is quite honest.”
More than anything, the coconut palm dominates the psyche here. For its fruit, of course, with its prominence in snacks such as prepared coconuts or in delicious stews and seafood dishes which are known along the entire Pacific coast. However, other Pacific states do not celebrate or obsess over the tuba, as Colima does.
The Bejarano family notes that people come from all over to especially taste the tuba from their stand, warning that not all the tubas are made with the same precision as theirs. “Some take it frozen to the United States,” says seller Karla Bejarano.
This arcane drink is a physical manifestation of food customs shared between Mexico and the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period, which were long overlooked, it says Rudy Guevarra Jr.professor of Asian and Pacific American studies at Arizona State University.
For 250 years, between 1565 and 1815, the famous fleet of galleons departed from the port of Manila to the port of Acapulco and back, traveling for months over the treacherous ocean while carrying a lucrative flow of food, silver, fabrics and culinary traditions. Their last port of call before arriving in Acapulco was Colima. The route also brought artisans, workers and slaves to the Spanish colony. These travelers were commonly called “Chinese Indians” in the colonial caste structure, although historians say most were Filipinos.
“They were both colonized by Spain and both were dealing with the horrors of colonization,” Guevarra says of the Filipinos and indigenous Mexicans, who “shared their knowledge with each other and participated in the resistance together. And then there was the exchange of ancestral knowledge, which became part of both countries.”
Jorge Velazco Rocha runs an artisanal tuba distillation project to make palm liquor in his roadside tavern near the town of Comala.
(Daniel Hernandez/Los Angeles Times)
The galleon also brought with it a fundamental technical secret. According to Paulina Machuca, historian at El Colegio de Michoacán and main figure In the study of the period, galleons introduced Mexicans to Asian distillation methods, which relied on natural materials rather than the more commonly known Arab copper still method that came through Europe.
“When I started studying this, I didn't know that tuba was a Filipino word, or that palapa was a Filipino word, and few knew it,” Machuca says. “The Filipino influence is incredibly strong, and perhaps we have not fully conceptualized the extent of its historical importance… to this part of Mexico.”
Influence and ethnicities mixed quietly over the centuries, Guevarra says. “But that idea and knowledge of their ancestors and where they came from was never lost.”
The tuba is actually the base of an even rarer drink, the alcoholic distillate “coconut wine.” This is essentially the situation in the Philippines. lambanogdistilled tuba, with a high alcoholic level and a touch similar to rustic sugar cane alcohol. In Mexico, coconut wine (anything that made you drunk in colonial times was called “wine”) was eventually banned by the Spanish crown and considered extinct. Until now.
Holding a glass carafe, Jorge Velazco Rocha crouches before a contraption of wooden barrels stacked in a cascading pattern at his roadside tavern along the brush-covered slopes of the Colima Volcano. It's waiting to catch a clear liquid dripping from a spout near the bottom.
“This is the 'coconut wine' of ancient Mexico,” says Velazco, a 76-year-old academic and businessman. “This is the first time anyone in Mexico has done this in centuries.”
Velazco's claim is impossible to verify, although he believes he is merely reviving the practice of making palm liquor with tuba in Mexico. Your trendy coconut wine may not be exactly the kind of liquor you'd like to drink in your free time, like mezcal or tequila. However, it is a valuable historical curiosity and another example of Colima's unique charms.
Of course, as with everything related to Mexico, Colima food can be found in Los Angeles. Incredibly, even the tuba.
Raspados Nayarit is a simple shop on Broadway in Lincoln Heights, located across from Lincoln High School. The company name, which referred to another Pacific state, was inherited. Rodrigo Carmona, who runs the juice and snack shop with his wife and son, simply kept it.
“People from Colima get jealous,” says Carmona. “But that's the name we built.”
Their store may be the only place in Los Angeles County that serves tuba, which they import frozen. The family says that between 80% and 90% of their clientele are people originally from the state looking for a taste of home. The Colima-style appetizers from matriarch María del Refugio Morquecho are also an attraction.
Rodrigo Carmona, María del Refugio Morquecho and their son Uriel Carmona are the family behind Raspados Nayarit, the only place in Los Angeles that serves imported tuba, a fermented drink from the state of Colima.
(Karen Mariana Cárdenas Ceballos/De Los)
Many come to try the tuba a little, he says. “From what I understand, it's very good for your energy and your kidneys.”
The tuba “is an art form,” says Carmona. “Not all tubas are the same. It all comes down to the individual tuberos and his approach.”
When Raspados Nayarit serves their composite tuba—vibrantly pink, cold, and topped with diced apples and peanuts—it's a reminder of Colima's home. But it is also compelling evidence of the depth and complexity of the Mexican diaspora in Los Angeles. Almost anything you can get in Mexico, in theory, you can get in Los Angeles.
When I drink it here, the tuba at Raspados Nayarit also reminds me of my own trip to Colima: the looming power of the volcano, a toast of dry pozole, and the warmth of a sunset over the coast of Manzanillo.
