Chicha de quinoa is a chicha – an Andean fermented drink – brewed from quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) instead of the usual maize. “Chicha” covers a whole family of drinks from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina. Maize is by far the main grain, but quinoa is also used (FAO, 1999), on its own or alongside maize, and it gives a paler, earthier, slightly bitter drink. Compared with chicha de jora, the maize version, quinoa chicha has hardly been studied, so this page is clear about what’s known about chicha in general and what applies to quinoa.
How Chicha Works
Grain starch has to be turned into sugar before yeast can ferment it. Traditionally that was done in two ways: by chewing the grain, so that saliva’s amylase breaks the starch down, or by malting (sprouting) it, so the grain makes its own enzymes; the two are often combined. Chichas range widely in strength, from about 2% to 12% alcohol by volume (FAO, 1999).
In chicha de jora, maize is sprouted, cooked and fermented spontaneously by lactic acid bacteria, yeasts and acetic acid bacteria, and regional versions add pseudocereals such as quinoa, fruits, spices and sugar (Torres-Cárdenas et al., 2026). Yeasts isolated from Ecuadorian chichas included Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Torulaspora delbrueckii (Grijalva-Vallejos et al., 2021). The closest studied relative of a quinoa chicha is Peru’s chicha de siete semillas (“seven-seed chicha”) from Huanta in Ayacucho, made from maize with other cereals, pseudocereals and legumes: samples from six producers were sour, mostly from lactic acid, low in alcohol, matured for under four days, and dominated by Streptococcus and Leuconostoc bacteria (Rebaza-Cardenas et al., 2023).
Quinoa’s Saponins
Quinoa seeds carry bitter, soapy saponins on the outside, and traditional preparation removes them by rubbing and washing. Washing works: in a study of six quinoa varieties, longer treatment, more water and warmer water all removed more saponins in a wet washing process, which left the protein and trace-mineral content unchanged (El Hazzam et al., 2022). Saponins are a matter of taste more than nutrition here: in a laboratory digestion of 12 varieties, bitter and non-bitter quinoa released the same amounts of minerals and fat-soluble vitamins (Lindenmayer et al., 2026). Most quinoa sold today is already washed, but rinse it until the water stops foaming.
Malting Quinoa
Quinoa sprouts fast. In a study brewing beers from black, red, white and grey quinoa, 48 hours of germination worked best, and it raised polyphenols, protein and GABA while lowering phytic acid, tannins and trypsin inhibitors (Xu et al., 2026). The catch for home brewers is heat: the enzymes made during sprouting do their work at typical mashing temperatures (about 60–70°C) and are destroyed by boiling. So the method below holds the ground sprouts warm for an hour first and boils afterwards – and, like many chichas, it adds some sugar so the fermentation doesn’t depend on the quinoa’s enzymes alone.
Serving It
Drink chicha de quinoa fresh, within a day or two of fermentation, when it’s lightly sour and only mildly alcoholic. It keeps fermenting, getting sourer and stronger, and turns vinegary if left open. For other South American ferments, see Brazil’s cauim, the Amazonian masato and Mexico’s pulque.