Cacao is older than any chocolate. It was a drink of the gods, a currency and a medicine; to this day it is a piece of living Maya culture – and a plant that wants to return to the forest.
Photo: Bayu nugroho, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Cacao is a member of the mallow family (Malvaceae) – related to hibiscus and cotton, not to the nightshades. The tree only grows in the tropics, likes it warm and humid, and in nature stands in the shade of taller trees.
Its flowers grow directly on the trunk, and only a fraction of them become fruit – 15 to 30 centimetres long, yellow, orange or red, depending on the variety. One pod holds 30 to 50 seeds in sweet, white pulp – the cacao beans.
Since 1944, three groups have traditionally been distinguished. Almost everything harvested worldwide is hardy Forastero. The original Criollo of the Maya – our DaliLeo cacao – now makes up only a fraction of the world cocoa harvest.
Domesticated in Mesoamerica, the cacao of the Maya and the Aztecs. Beans white to pale lilac. Mild, complex and hardly bitter in flavour. This variety is more delicate – and in return more prone to disease and lower-yielding, which is why it is rare. It dominated the market until the mid-18th century; today there are hardly any pure trees left. DaliLeo is bringing this variety back into cultivation.
Originally from the Amazon basin, it was brought from Brazil to West Africa in the 19th century – today it is the world’s main cocoa: Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana together supply around half of the world cocoa harvest. Strong, classically chocolatey, with bitterness; hardy and high-yielding. Almost all supermarket chocolate is made from it.
Emerged on Trinidad from 1727 onwards, when the Criollo trees that survived a hurricane crossed with Forastero. Complex and balanced, fruity, nutty, spicy – strongly shaped by its terroir. The cacao from Jun Ajpu is a Trinitario Acriollado, which means it is genetically close to Criollo.
Then there is Nacional from Ecuador (under 1%, intensely floral) – alongside Criollo and Trinitario, the third variety that the ICCO lists as ‘fine or flavour’. Together, these fine or flavour cocoas make up just under 5% of world production; a good 95% is bulk cocoa. The world cocoa harvest is around 4.8 million tonnes a year, about 72% of it from Africa, 22% from the Americas and 6% from Asia and Oceania. Sources: ICCO – Growing Cocoa, Radad International – Cocoa Species & Varieties (ICCO figures 2024/25)
The genus Theobroma comes from South America, east of the Andes. For a long time, Mesoamerica was thought to be the cradle of cacao. Then researchers at Santa Ana-La Florida in southern Ecuador found traces of cacao on pottery that is more than 5,300 years old – around 1,500 years before the tree was domesticated. So cacao comes from the Amazon region; it became a cultivated plant further north.
About 3,000 years ago the Olmecs used cacao, and the Maya made it their ceremonial drink – their word ‘kakaw’ is our name. It was drunk bitter, frothed from vessel to vessel, with chilli, vanilla or maize, never sweet.
Among the Aztecs, the beans were even used as money. For the Maya, cacao was not a treat but a companion: it accompanies birth, marriage, harvest and farewell – with fire, gratitude and in community.
Cacao reached Europe with the Spanish in the 16th century – but it only became popular once people started adding sugar. What we put in your cup is the older form: whole, barely altered cacao.
With colonisation, the tree travelled across the tropics – and with Ghana, in the 19th century, began the West African cocoa that the world market relies on today.
Until the mid-18th century, the fine Criollo was the world’s cacao. Then hardier, higher-yielding varieties pushed it out almost completely. That is exactly where our two farms come in: DaliLeo preserves Criollo in agroforestry, and Jun Ajpu prepares cacao the way the Maya knew it. At Lake Atitlán, people still say that cacao comes back when people forget their origins.
Cacao naturally grows in the shade of the rainforest. Where it is grown in monoculture today, the environment pays the price – which is why there are now global agreements that promote growing it in agroforestry systems.
Around 70% of cocoa comes from Africa, harvested by five to six million farming families, mostly on less than one hectare. According to the UN Environment Programme, unsustainable farming, for example in Côte d’Ivoire, has led to deforestation and exhausted soils. On top of that come climate change and extreme weather: too much rain at the end of 2023 allowed diseases such as swollen shoot virus and black pod rot to spread in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire – one reason for the record prices of recent years.
The International Cocoa Agreement, renegotiated in 2010 under the lead of the UN trade conference UNCTAD and administered by the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), brings together 23 producing and 29 consuming countries – together around 97% of world production and about 60% of imports, including all 27 EU member states and Switzerland. Alongside price transparency and more stable incomes for farmers, its focus is sustainable development: agroforestry – cacao grown among other trees and plants – is meant to bring back forest cover, strengthen biodiversity and keep soils healthy.
This is exactly how our DaliLeo cacao grows: together with cardamom and coffee beneath shade-giving hardwood trees, with animals that fertilise the ground and keep the undergrowth short. The harvest per tree is smaller than on a plantation – but the harvest of the whole system is larger, and it lasts for decades.
Source: UNCTAD – International Cocoa Agreement: enhancing cooperation and dialogue along global value chains (June 2024)
A block, hot water, a little patience. That is how pure cacao becomes a cup that brings joy – in the morning, in the evening or in ceremony.
Chop or grate the block finely – the finer it is, the faster it dissolves. Pour hot but not boiling water over it: 70 to 80 °C is ideal, as water that is too hot makes the cacao bitter and takes away its aroma. Then stir until the cocoa butter has blended in and the surface is glossy. If you like it creamy, use some oat or coconut milk.
Finally, whisk it until frothy if you like – with a whisk, the Molinillo or a quick burst in the blender. Fine particles at the bottom are normal: this is whole cacao, not an extract. Personally, we like it with a little less water – then it becomes thicker, almost syrupy, and tastes more intense.
Pure cacao is strong and earthy, Criollo almost floral. Spices open it up: cardamom makes it bright, cinnamon makes it warm, chilli brings the warmth of the Maya and vanilla rounds it off. A pinch of salt lifts all the flavours.
Sweetening is a matter of taste – if you do, use a little and add it at the end, so the cacao stays the main character. Panela (unrefined whole cane sugar from Guatemala) works best; honey, date syrup or coconut blossom sugar work just as well.
Cacao Jun Ajpu already comes with its own blend: cinnamon, chilli, vanilla and a little Panela, stirred by hand in Antigua. The DaliLeo block is pure – your space to experiment.
A cacao ceremony is not a recipe but an attitude. It begins before the cup: a quiet space, perhaps a candle, and the question of why you are drinking cacao today. The Maya speak of intention – what you put into the cup before you drink from it. Then drink slowly, in small sips, and notice what you feel: warmth in the chest, a sense of space, alertness without restlessness.
It is best on a light or empty stomach and without coffee beforehand. Cacao is a gentle but noticeable companion – less is often more, and a ceremony does not depend on the number of grams. If you are pregnant, have heart problems or take medication, it is better to check the amount with your doctor first.
If you would like to experience or lead a ceremony, write to us – we are happy to share what we have learned at Lake Atitlán and from our friends.
The stimulant in cacao is called theobromine: related to caffeine, but slower, milder and lasting for hours – without the peak and the crash. It contains much less caffeine than an espresso, and it also brings magnesium and flavanols, which coffee does not. Coffee drives you, cacao opens you – for focused, creative work, for a conversation, for a morning without a racing heart.
You can switch in two steps: first replace your afternoon coffee, then your morning coffee. 30 g of cacao with oat milk and a pinch of cinnamon is a good start. After one or two weeks, most people no longer even think of coffee.
What is in it, what does research know – and what doesn’t it know?
We bring together what is backed by evidence and say where questions are still open.
Pure cacao mass – in other words, our block – is about half cocoa butter. The other half is the bean itself: fibre, plant protein, minerals, secondary plant compounds and a handful of messenger substances that make cacao so special. The figures below are for 100 g of cacao mass, so a 30 g cup contains just under a third of them. How much actually reaches you depends on the variety, fermentation and processing.
Guide values for 100% cacao mass (unsweetened baking chocolate, USDA), rounded; theobromine and flavanol content vary a great deal depending on variety, fermentation and roasting.
In ceremony, people say that cacao opens the heart. Research has no way of measuring that – but it does know three substances that point in the same direction: theobromine, flavanols and the body’s own cannabinoids.
Theobromine is the main active compound in cacao. Like caffeine, it blocks the adenosine receptors that make us feel tired – only more gently, because it crosses the blood–brain barrier less easily. In return, it stays in the body for longer. Anyone who drinks cacao instead of coffee knows the result: alertness without a racing heart and without withdrawal.
A 2024 review (Zhang et al.) sums up twenty years of research: in animal studies, theobromine protects nerve cells when blood flow is disrupted, improves memory and movement and has an anti-inflammatory effect; in cell studies, it stimulates brown fat tissue and inhibits the formation of uric acid kidney stones. In one human study, it slightly raised ‘good’ HDL cholesterol. Two large US population studies found a link between theobromine in the diet and better thinking skills in older age. But the authors also say clearly: almost all the evidence comes from animal and cell experiments, research in humans is only just beginning – and during pregnancy and breastfeeding it is better to cut down on theobromine, because it crosses the placenta.
Cocoa flavanols, above all epicatechin, are among the best-studied plant compounds. Their mechanism is known: they increase the availability of nitric oxide, which relaxes the inner walls of the blood vessels. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has approved a health claim for this – 200 mg of cocoa flavanols a day help to maintain normal, endothelium-dependent blood flow.
A study by the universities of Illinois and Birmingham (Gratton et al., Scientific Reports 2020) showed that this also applies to the brain: in a double-blind trial, 18 healthy young men drank cocoa with either a high or a very low flavanol content. Two hours later, after the high-flavanol cocoa, the oxygen supply in the frontal lobe responded to a stimulus around a minute faster and much more strongly, blood vessel function in the arm improved – and the participants did better on the hardest thinking task. On easy tasks there was no difference: cacao does not make you cleverer, it gives the brain a reserve when it is challenged. Those whose blood vessels benefited also benefited cognitively.
The large long-term studies point in the same direction: in the COSMOS study (21,000 people, 3.6 years, 500 mg of flavanols daily), 27% fewer people in the cocoa group died of cardiovascular disease; a Columbia study found better blood flow in the hippocampus and better memory in older adults after twelve weeks. To be honest: these studies use standardised extracts, not a cup of cacao. How many flavanols your cacao contains depends on variety, fermentation and roasting – and alkalised industrial cocoa has lost most of them.
Anandamide, named after the Sanskrit word ananda for bliss, is a cannabinoid that the body makes itself. It binds to the same receptors as THC, but is made ‘on demand’ and broken down again within minutes. A 2018 review (Scherma et al., Acta Pharmacologica Sinica) describes its role in the brain’s reward system: anandamide modulates the release of dopamine, relieves pain, eases anxiety and lifts mood – and widens blood vessels via TRPV1 receptors. Interesting for us: the same receptors respond to capsaicin, the hot compound in chilli, which the Maya added to their cacao.
In 1996, researchers at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego found anandamide in chocolate, along with two related substances that slow down its breakdown. That is where the saying ‘cacao makes you happy’ comes from. What you should know: the amounts are tiny, and nobody has ever measured whether they reach the brain after drinking. The high does not come from the cup. What cacao can do is quieter: it brings warmth to the chest, widens the blood vessels, keeps you alert and calm at the same time – and in this way creates the space in which the heart can open.
And this is exactly where the circle closes: we take in hardly any anandamide through food – the body makes it itself, and mainly from what we experience. Movement, dance, closeness and community raise its level: in humans, anandamide in the blood is measurably higher after about half an hour of running at a moderate pace – but not after very light or very hard exercise (Raichlen et al. 2012, 2013). That is why it is seen as one of the main players in the so-called runner’s high, and in animal experiments even social closeness sets off anandamide signals in the reward centre. A ceremony with intention, silence and a shared cup is exactly this kind of experience. It is not cacao alone that makes us happy, but what we experience with it and with each other.
‘Raw cacao’ is a big claim: even during fermentation, the heap heats up to 60 °C – for three to six days, and that is exactly where the aroma develops. Cacao is practically never completely raw. ‘Raw cacao’ usually means cacao that has afterwards only been gently dried and processed below about 45 °C.
What really harms the valuable compounds is not gentle roasting but the alkalisation (‘Dutching’) of industrial cocoa: the cocoa is treated with an alkali to make it milder and darker – and in the process it loses a large part of its flavanols. Long, hot roasting and lots of sugar also dilute what the bean brings with it.
Our farms ferment in banana leaves or wooden boxes, dry in the sun and roast lightly over a fire – just enough for the bitter compounds to soften while the character remains. Not alkalised, not defatted, with no additives. That is why we prefer to call it ‘whole cacao’ rather than ‘raw cacao’.
Cadmium is a heavy metal that occurs naturally in soils – somewhat more of it in volcanic regions, where a lot of cacao grows. The tree takes it up through its roots; how much depends on the soil, pH value, variety and location. Human-made sources are artificial fertiliser, sewage sludge and industry – on agroforestry farms without chemicals, these do not apply.
Since 1 January 2019, EU maximum levels have applied: 0.60 mg/kg for cocoa powder and 0.80 mg/kg for chocolate with at least 50% cocoa (introduced by Regulation (EU) 488/2014, now continued in Regulation (EU) 2023/915). The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) gives 2.5 µg per kilogram of body weight per week as the tolerable weekly intake – for a person weighing 70 kg that is 175 µg per week; a 30 g cup of cacao with 0.5 mg/kg cadmium contains 15 µg. Cadmium is stored in the body for years – so what matters is the amount over a long time, not a single cup. We know our farms, their soils and how they grow; if you have questions about lab results, write to us.
