Cacao is not chocolate. The 70%+ dark you eat off a square is processed, sweetened, often cut with milk fats. Ceremonial cacao is the bean ground into a paste with nothing else added.
Drinking ceremonial cacao raises body temperature, opens the chest, and gently lifts the heart rate. It contains theobromine — a softer cousin of caffeine — and a small amount of anandamide, the molecule the body produces when you're at ease.
It is not a psychedelic. Anyone who tells you it is, is selling something. What cacao does is open you slightly more to whatever is already there. If you arrive sad, sadness comes up. If you arrive open, openness deepens.
I source mine from small farms in Guatemala and Peru — direct trade, women-led cooperatives where possible. The lineage matters. The ceremony was theirs first; I'm a guest in it.
Written by
Tanya Ryder
Sound healing practitioner & cacao ceremony holder · Ibiza