Traditional beverage: Brazilian Indian Kaschiri

This Brazilian kaschiri is brewed from masticated cassava. The alcoholic cassava products are beverages similar to beer or solid foods. To obtain cassava beers it is necessary to hydrolyze the starch before starting fermentation by yeast. Cassava is a shrubby tree with large tuberous roots that are rather immune to insect attack because of the high levels of cyanide in the tuber skin.

The poison is removed by squeezing the grated and ground tubers on water and then heating or evaporating the products. The starchy juice pressed out of ground cassava is fermented or it is chewed in the starchy form, which aids the change into sugar. Nowadays, malting enzymes usually replace saliva.

For Brazilian Indians, this beverage plays a main part in religious feasts and especially in the death-feasts. In this occasion the beverage give the drinkers the power of resistance against evil spirits.
Traditional beverage: Brazilian Indian Kaschiri