Guaraná is a climbing plant that belongs to the Amazon basin (specially in the Brazilian part) and it’s very popular in Brazil. It has  large leaves and it is best known for the seeds from its fruit, which are about the size of a coffee bean. The fruit’s colour varies from brown to red and it contains black seeds  with a fleshy white fruit and this contrast between the colours has often been linked to eyeballs. If consumed alone, the taste is a little bitter but it’s extremely pleasant when mixed with sugar.

This little fruit is a potentially and effective stimulant due it’s high concentration of caffeine. The caffeine found in Guaraná is twice more concentrated than the caffeine found in coffee seeds. Plus, it also contains tiny amounts of theophylline and theobromine, which are similar to caffeine. Usually people mix guaraná powder to water and drink it when they need to be awake for a long time.

Guaraná fruit has many health benefits:

– Speeds up metabolism:  it increases the metabolism, that helps in fat burning process.

– Relive pains : The extract helps in reducing painful symptoms such as migraine, headache and rheumatism.

– Boots mental abilities: it improves the memory and cognitive function and stabilizes the mood

– Blood thinning, anti-platelet activity, anti-thrombosis: it contains caffeine, catechins and  epicatechines that might be responsible for anti-platelet aggregatory activity

More common than powder guaraná, is the  sweetened or carbonated soft drinks with guaraná flavour. Brazil is the third largest consumer of soft drinks in the world and  our country has several soft drinks brands that sells products with guaraná extract. The most popular brand of guaraná-flavoured soft drink is “Guaraná Antártica” which was created in 1912 and it’s produced in Brazil, Portugal and Japan. This soft drink is also available in   in Portugal, Spain, Honduras, Haiti, Paraguay, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

Now you can check some photos about this peculiar fruit and guaraná soft-drinks: