Agua de Cebada

Barley simmered with cinnamon — the grain cultivated since 8000 BCE, the cinnamon from the Arab spice trade that Spanish colonizers introduced to Latin America.

Agua de Cebada is a barley-based beverage whose preparation — steeping toasted or raw barley grains in water, sweetening with sugar, and flavoring with cinnamon and lemon — draws on one of the world's oldest agricultural traditions. Barley, Hordeum vulgare, was among the first crops domesticated by human agricultural communities, with archaeological evidence placing its cultivation in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East by approximately 8000 BCE. The grain spread westward through North Africa and Europe with the expansion of agricultural practices, and the Romans' extensive use of barley — both for bread, animal feed, and beverages — carried the tradition into the Iberian Peninsula, where it persisted through the Moorish period and into the Spanish colonial era. Agua de Cebada belongs to the Spanish and Latin American tradition of grain-based refreshments that also includes horchata de chufa (Valencia) and horchata de arroz (Mexico), all sharing the principle of extracting flavor and nutrition from a cooked or soaked grain in water. In Mexico, Peru, and other Latin American countries, the barley water is often enhanced with cinnamon — a spice introduced to the Americas by Spanish colonizers who had adopted it from the Arab spice trade — and fresh lemon juice, whose acid brightens the grain's starchy sweetness. The drink is valued as a digestive aid and a gentle source of carbohydrates.