Cacao & sweets
Raw Criollo cacao
Theobroma cacao (var. Criollo)
The living bean of the gods — under 5% of world production, kept raw below 42°C.
Ancestral memory
For the Maya and the Aztecs, cacao was sacred. They beat it into 'xocoatl', a bitter drink whisked to a foam, reserved for ceremonies, healers and rulers; the beans even served as currency. When Linnaeus named the tree in 1753, he chose 'Theobroma' — literally the food of the gods. Criollo, the oldest and noblest variety of the cacao tree, still carries the memory of that heritage today.
What science observes
The decisive gesture is temperature: worked and dried below 42°C, the cacao stays raw and keeps the bean's full palette — polyphenols (flavanols, notably epicatechin), theobromine, magnesium, iron, and the well-being molecules anandamide and phenylethylamine. The large COSMOS trial (2022) confirmed the cardiovascular interest of cocoa flavanols, which support vascular flexibility and blood flow, all the way to the brain. Theobromine, a gentle cousin of caffeine, accompanies alertness on a long, steady curve.
In the kitchen
We choose a single-origin cacao, Criollo preferably, from artisans who master drying and transport — that is where the quality is made. We always work it below 42°C, to keep the bean alive: as a tablet sweetened with date and lucuma, as a ceremonial cacao whisked into hot — never boiling — water, or grated over a dessert. A small amount is enough; Criollo is dense, received in slow sips rather than large gulps.
Resonance
Raw cacao is a plant of the heart. Its warmth does not lash: it opens, and something expands in the chest, a presence wider and more tender. It is the vibration of giving — to receive, then to offer.