Cacao Ceremonial Nibs

Criollo cacao — the rarer, milder of the two principal cacao lineages, prized over the hardier forastero for its complexity rather than its yield — grown on smallholdings in Chuao, a village on Venezuela's coast reachable only by boat or a mountain trail. The beans are fermented in wooden boxes, sun-dried on woven mats, then lightly cracked into nibs: small, dark, faintly bitter fragments, unsweetened and unrefined, the raw material chocolate is made from before sugar and cocoa butter soften it. Cacao was drunk, never eaten as a solid, by the Maya and later the Aztec, who reserved it for nobility, priests, and warriors and used the beans themselves as currency. Xocolatl, the bitter, spiced drink it became, is the root of the word chocolate itself. The Aztec called it the food of the gods, a name that has followed the bean ever since. A tablespoon steeped in hot water and whisked makes a bitter, old-style drinking chocolate; a few nibs eaten plain, slowly, are closer to how the bean tastes before anyone improved on it. Cacao is valued as a source of flavanols and magnesium, taken here in its whole, minimally processed form rather than as an extract. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease and is no substitute for medical advice.