Ceremonial Cacao, the Food for the Shift

Cacao Being Picked
Chocolate Yoga™ uses only the highest quality, hand picked, ceremonial grade cacao direct from the Mayan homelands of Guatemala.

What is Ceremonial Cacao?

It seems that everyone is talking about cacao these days. And it seems that most cacao is raw, organic and fair trade; so how is the cacao we use in Chocolate Yoga different?

Ceremonial cacao was traditionally used by the Ancient Mayan Shamans in ceremony to travel between the worlds, to travel beyond the veil. To do this, the shamans infused their cacao with spirit, giving the ceremonial cacao a spiritual dimension not found in other cacao sources. Ceremonial cacao is therefore an ancient plant medicine, a wisdom keeper, a teacher and facilitator. Ceremonial cacao leads you to the door to the heart, to the spiritual dimension, but it does not push you through like other plant medicines – such as those found in the Amazon Basin. Ceremonial cacao invites you on a journey, to travel with the chocolate spirit through the veil, but only if you choose.

An Indigenous Mayan myth tells us whenever the balance between humans and nature becomes threatened, cacao comes from the rainforest to open people’s hearts and return the planet to a state of harmony. Ceremonial cacao is then the Food for the Shift.

Is it raw, organic and fair-trade?

Cacao Pod
Ceremonial Cacao is grown in the rainforests of Guatemala without chemicals. Our Chocolate Shaman is led by the spirit of the cacao (or the chocolate spirit as he calls it) to the highest grade ceremonial cacao. Ceremonial cacao is not mass produced on corporate farms, it grows in its original habitat as nature intended. The beans are extracted from the cacao pods and the flesh removed. They are heated slightly on a large hotplate over hot coals to make the beans easy to peel. All the mouldy beans are removed (a rare part of the processing, not usually done in most raw cacao production). Guatemalan women hand peel each bean before the cacao is ground in an antique mill. The mill has been, and always will be, a mill used purely to grind cacao. It is not used to grind coffee beans. As the beans are ground, they heat slighly allowing the ground powder to stick together to form a paste. the paste is made into blocks of what is termed cacao liquor.

Cacao liquor is the whole bean. Cacao in powdered form has had most of the the cacao butter extracted during the processing, while cacao liquor contains the butter and the powder, giving it a richer flavour, whilst retaining all the good oils. In your next Chocolate Yoga™ class, have a look at your hot chocolate to see the slightly oily film on the surface, indicating the delicious and nutritious cacao butter in the mix.

So Ceremonial cacao is not only the highest grade cacao available, it support indigineous Mayan communities in the rainforests of Guatemala. Every Chocolate Yoga student helps support these communities and contributes to the wellbeing of the indigenous Mayan people. For this we thank you!

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