The Flavors of Colombia's Páramos

Afluente's foray into the high altitude wetlands that are fundamental in retaining Colombia's fresh water supply.

The paramó ecosystem in southwest Colombia. Photo: Nicholas Gill.

At the restaurant Afluente in Bogotá, they use a plant called ají de páramo (Drimys granadensis), an evergreen shrub whose large, aromatic leaves have a peppery flavor, all through the menu. It’s said to stimulate the appetite, so they use it at the beginning, in the the snack, a cracker with goat cheese and the leaves are ground up and sprinkled on top. This form of use is the traditional condiment of the Muisca culture, whose descendants still live in central Colombia.

To the side is a plate, with ají de páramo’s brittle, broken leaves. The waiter clips off a small piece with scissors and I taste it. It’s a light spicy, peppery, floral flavor that lingers for just a minute or two. There are hints of guava and cinnamon. In the cracker with the goat cheese its much more subtle. More seasoning than spice, and it’s used that way dish after dish.

“We collect it in the Chingaza, on the El Palmar finca, on the farm of Mrs. Cristina and her son Jaime,” Afluente’s chef, Jeferson García, tells me. “We hike for three hours into the Chingaza. We collect them one by one during the fall harvest. Sometimes she goes and collects them and gives them to us, or we go and help her collect them every two weeks or so.”

Ají de páramo is the primary condiment at Afluente. It’s their salt. However, it is just a small fraction of the flavors from the páramo being used here.

Found between 3,000 and 4,500m in five Latin American countries in Latin America (Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica), this unique landscape, a neotropical high mountain biome with an incredibly important role, is hardly ever talked about. Colombia contains the majority of all páramo terrain and some of it is easily accessible from Bogotá, just 40 minutes away, so García and his team make regular trips.