Blue Agave

Blue agave, Agave tequilana, also called tequila agave or agave azul, is a large succulent native to the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, Michoacán and Aguascalientes. It favours altitudes above about 1,500 metres and rich, sandy soil, and forms a rosette of fleshy, spiked leaves that can pass two metres in height. Its importance to cooks and distillers rests on the heart of the plant, the piña, which stores sugar as inulin. Growers cut the heart in the plant's seventh to fourteenth year, heat it to convert the inulin to sugars, press out the sweet liquid called aguamiel, then ferment and distil it. Tequila is made only from a cultivar called Weber Azul, and mixto tequilas use a formulation of 51 percent agave sugar and 49 percent other sugars. Cultivated plants are propagated from removed shoots, which has cut genetic diversity and left crops exposed to rot and wilting diseases.