What is onces? Chile's afternoon tea, explained

In a lot of Chilean homes, the last meal of the day is not dinner. It is the once: a pot of tea, a basket of warm bread, and everything that goes on the bread, laid out in the early evening while the family catches up. On plenty of weeknights it is the only thing anybody eats after lunch.

For Chileans in the United States it is one of the habits that travels best, because almost everything on the table keeps. This guide explains what the once is, where the odd name comes from, what goes on the table, and how to set one up from an American kitchen, bread included.

What the once is

Once, pronounced ON-seh, means eleven in Spanish, and in Chile it is also the name of a meal. Chileans say tomar once, to take once, and you will hear both la once and las onces. It happens somewhere between late afternoon and early evening, anywhere from five o'clock to past eight depending on the household, and it sits halfway between an afternoon tea and a light supper.

Three things define it:

• It is built on bread. Warm rolls go in the middle of the table, and almost everything else is something to put on them.
• It is savory and sweet at the same time. Ham and cheese sit next to jam and manjar, and nobody finds that strange.
• It often replaces dinner. Lunch is the long, big meal of the Chilean day. By evening a once is enough, and in many homes it is the evening meal.

It is also the social meal. Chileans invite friends to tomar once the way Americans invite people over for dinner, and a once is a favorite way to celebrate a birthday, especially for small children and grandparents. If a Chilean family invites you, eat properly, because there may not be another meal coming.

One note for anyone searching the word: Colombians also say onces, for their own afternoon snack. This guide is about the Chilean one.

Why is it called eleven?

Nobody knows for sure, and Chileans enjoy the argument.

The story everyone has heard involves aguardiente, a strong grape spirit. Count the letters: a, g, u, a, r, d, i, e, n, t, e. Eleven. As the tale goes, workers, or in some tellings priests, would say they were off to take their eleven so they could have an afternoon drink without naming it. It is a good story, and it gets retold constantly.

It is also, as far as anyone can show, only a story. Santiago Saenz, a Chilean heritage specialist, told the Chilean magazine The Clinic in 2026 that the aguardiente explanation has little to support it. The likelier root is plainer: an old habit of eating something light around eleven in the morning. Over time the name came loose from the clock, kept the idea of a small meal between the big ones, and drifted to the afternoon.

Either way, the spirit is long gone from the table. A once today is tea, coffee and bread.

What goes on a once table

The bread

Chile is regularly ranked among the biggest bread eaters in the world, often second only to Germany, and the once is where a good share of that bread gets eaten. The two classics are marraqueta, the crackly roll baked in joined pieces that pull apart, and hallulla, the round, flat, softer one. If marraqueta is breakfast, hallulla is the once.

Both are hard to find in an American supermarket, which is why we carry them prebaked. Our Pan Prehorneado Hallulla comes eight rolls to an 800 g pack and our Pan Prehorneado Marraqueta eight to a pack, and both finish in a hot oven in about five minutes, so the bread arrives at the table warm the way it should. On weekends some families bake pan amasado, the rustic homemade roll, and our pan amasado and pebre recipe walks through it.

Things for the bread

Chileans call the toppings cosas pa'l pan, things for the bread, and a good once has both kinds.

• Savory: palta, mashed avocado, spread thick; ham; cheese; butter; sliced tomato; and on weekends, scrambled eggs. All of it is at any American grocery store.
• Sweet: manjar, Chile's milk caramel; jam; and membrillo, quince paste, sliced and eaten with cheese.

The sweet side is where an American kitchen usually comes up short. El Manjar is Nestlé Chile's manjar, 17.64 oz (500 g) of it, and our guide to what manjar is and which one to buy covers the rest of the family. Watt's Mermelada is the Chilean breakfast jam, in a squeezable pouch in seven flavors, and Membrillo Watt's is the quince paste to slice next to the cheese. When the bread runs out, Chileans reach for Galletas Soda, plain salted crackers that get eaten more like bread than like a snack.

Something sweet to finish

A once usually ends with something sweet next to the last cup. On a weekday that might be a slice of queque, a plain pound cake, or a few cookies: Triton, the Chilean chocolate sandwich cookie, is good with tea. On weekends the table gets more elaborate, and in the south, where German settlers brought their baking, the sweet is often kuchen, a fruit topped cake. In December the once cake is pan de pascua, and our guide to a Chilean Christmas explains why it counts as a cake despite the name.

Tea, coffee or an agüita

The once is named for a number, but it runs on tea. Chile picked up its tea habit from the British merchants of old Valparaíso, and in most homes the kettle goes on before anything else reaches the table.

Black tea

To a Chilean, té with no other word attached means black tea, drunk with sugar and with or without milk. Ceylon is the everyday style on our shelf: Té Ceylán comes in a 125 g pack, and Supremo Ceylán Premium comes as 20 double chamber tea bags.

Instant coffee

Coffee at a once is often instant, spooned straight into the cup and taken strong, sweet or milky. Our Chilean NesCafé is there for exactly that.

The herb drawer

Then there are the herbs. Chileans often call an herbal infusion an agua, as in agua de boldo, or more fondly an agüita, and a Chilean kitchen keeps several on hand. Boldo, from a tree native to central Chile, is the classic after a heavy meal. Alongside it sit manzanilla, chamomile; menta, mint; cedrón, lemon verbena; llantén, plantain leaf; and older country herbs like bailahuén and matico. Rosa mosqueta, rosehip, turns up in the fruit blends.

Our Chilean tea collection carries the Supremo herbal line, including boldo and cedrón in boxes of 20 tea bags.

Not quite an English afternoon tea

Because the tea came by way of the British, visitors often describe the once as Chilean high tea. Chileans tend to disagree. There are no tiered stands and no crustless sandwiches. It is a family table, built out of the bread basket and the fridge, and the conversation runs long after the food is gone.

The best way to see it is a film. La once, released in English as Tea Time, is Maite Alberdi's 2014 documentary about five women in Santiago who met for once every month for sixty years. Alberdi, the granddaughter of one of them, points the camera at almost nothing but the table, and she has said plainly that the once is not English tea time. The film aired in the United States on the PBS documentary series POV in 2015, and it is a lovely way to understand what this meal means to Chileans.

How to set up a Chilean once in the USA

None of this needs a special trip. Most of the table comes from your usual grocery store, and the rest keeps in the pantry.

• Pick a time. Somewhere between six and eight in the evening works, and plan for it to stand in for dinner.
• Warm the bread. Prebaked hallullas go into a 400°F oven for about five minutes. Split them and serve them warm in a basket.
• Set out the savory side. Mashed palta, sliced tomato, ham, cheese and butter. A plate of scrambled eggs makes it a weekend once.
• Set out the sweet side. Manjar, a jam or two, and membrillo next to the cheese.
• Put the kettle on. Black tea for most, instant coffee for the rest, and a box of herbs for whoever wants an agüita afterwards.
• Finish with something sweet. A queque, a kuchen if someone in the family bakes, or a pack of cookies.

If you would rather we put it together, our Build Your Once page does it in four steps: choose your bread, add your spreads, pick a drink, and check out. The bread finishes in your oven in minutes.

Keep exploring

The once is one corner of a much bigger table. Our complete guide to Chilean food in the USA covers the whole pantry, from the bread basket to the September holidays, and our Fiestas Patrias party guide handles the biggest celebration of the Chilean year. For sourcing questions generally, we keep a detailed answer in where can I buy Chilean products in the USA.

And if this is your first once: warm hallullas, a bowl of palta, the manjar, a pot of tea, and nowhere to be for the next two hours.

Missing something from your once table?

Tell us which one. We know what a Chilean once looks like, and we answer these ourselves.