Aguas frescas

Aguas frescas — literally "fresh waters" — are the broad Mexican family of light, non-alcoholic drinks made by blending or steeping fruit, seeds, flowers, cereals or tubers with water, sweetening the result, and serving it very cold over ice. They are not a single recipe but an umbrella category: any of dozens of flavours ladled from tall glass barrel jars called vitroleros at markets, taquerías and street stalls across Mexico and Central America. The most familiar members are the three classic aguas — agua de horchata (rice and cinnamon), agua de jamaica (hibiscus) and agua de tamarindo (tamarind) — but the category also embraces melon, cucumber-lime, pineapple, strawberry, guava, watermelon and chia-seed waters, among many others. What unites them is dilution: unlike a straight fruit juice, an agua fresca is fruit or flavour thinned with water into something lighter and more thirst-quenching.