Ceremonial Cacao, Heart-Opening Medicine: A Journey Through Three Sacred Worlds

There are moments when a plant does not only nourish your body, but calls to your soul. Cacao is one of those plants. And we have added three ceremonial grade cacao brands to our portfolio (view collection)

This is not the kind of cacao you find in your supermarket, but the kind that is still honoured, treated with reverence, prepared by hands that carry stories, and communities who consider the bean a sacred visitor.

Ceremonial cacao is not just a beverage. It is an encounter.
An encounter with a plant that opens the heart, a tradition rooted in women’s wisdom, and the earth itself.
Sit. Breathe. Open. And let me take you into three worlds.

I. Ruk’u’x U’lew, Heart of the Earth (view product)

In the mist-shrouded hills around Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, where the dawn light drapes over volcanoes and the air tastes of fire-charcoal and dew, there is a little house on a lakeside path. Within, a circle of women sits around low wooden tables. Their hands are steady. Their voices whisper in a language older than most of us have heard. They select, peel and mill cacao beans as their grandmothers did. They sing. They remember.

At the heart of this circle is Cecilia Mendoza Chiyal. She is not a brand-owner in the cold sense: she is a keeper of medicine, of women’s work, of Mayan memory. Years ago, when women in her village asked her for work, she went to the fire, the spirits and the earth and asked: “Which path can bear work and meaning for women?” The answer came back clear: cacao.

Cecilia began brewing her family’s cacao drink every major holiday with beans from an organic farm in Alta Verapaz. Compliments followed. Then cafés in the village asked for blocks of cacao. Word spread. Demand grew. And with it, opportunity.

She hired more women, grandmothers, mothers, daughters, weaving together a collective that is 100 % Mayan-women-owned. Their work is slow. The beans are fermented, sun-dried, lightly roasted over wood-fire, then individually peeled by hand. The name “Ruk’u’x U’lew” means literally “Heart of the Earth” in Kaqchikel. 

There is an energy to this cacao that you feel. Many describe it as earthy yet luminous, deeply grounding yet warming the heart from the inside. When you drink it, you’re drinking not just bean, but ancestry, devotion, ritual.

When you hold the cup of this cacao in your hands, rest your palms gently around it. Pause. Feel the warmth and stillness. Bring it slowly to your heart, yes, literally your heart centre. Let your heartbeat synchronise with the warmth. Ask your heart aloud or in stillness: “Am I ready? I open.” This cacao asks your heart to be ready, because it is a heart-opener.

II. Keith’s Cacao, The Chocolate Shaman (view product)

On the shores of the same lake, another story unfolds, not of roots bound in tradition, but of a man who heard the cacao speak. The story of his life reads like a modern myth: geologist turned wanderer turned cacao mystic. This is the story of Keith Wilson, widely known as The Chocolate Shaman.

In 2003, as a tourist in Guatemala, Keith says he met the “Cacao Spirit”. He didn’t go seeking cacao. He went seeking something bigger. The Spirit of the plant found him. For him, cacao was never a commodity; it was a doorway. Doorway to consciousness, to heart-awakening, to creative flow.

He spent years travelling from Mexico to Panama, parsing beans, meeting indigenous growers, buying cacao in the back roads of the jungle. And then he made a choice: to process his cacao by hand, inspect every bean, discard those that were flawed. In his own words: “We are literally the only people in the world who inspect each bean by hand and by sight, twice.” 

He built his model of cacao not around efficiency, but around medicine, integrity and heart. He says that when humanity drifts out of harmony with nature, cacao comes from the forest to open people’s hearts and restore balance.

With his cacao you feel possibility. You feel your own magic. One writer described her first sip:

“If this is a cult… at least it would be an interesting way to go.” 

When you make a latte with his cacao, treat it as more than “chocolate”. Hold the cup. Feel the ritual. Ask: “What wants to open?” Let the cacao find your heart. Let the medicine speak.

III. Dalileo, Wilderness, Heirloom, Regeneration (view product)

Deep in the lush ridges of Alta Verapaz, on a reclaimed coffee plantation, a family and their community decided to plant cacao differently. Not in rows. Not for speed. But for forest. Biodiversity. Healing. At Finca El Porvenir, they planted heirloom criollo cacao under the canopy of hardwood trees. 

The bean they bring to your cup is rare, criollo cacao is said to be under 5 % of world production and is highly prized for taste and potency. Dalileo writes: “We are not just rescuing the essence of cacao … the more cacao we can produce and share, the more our biodiverse forest will grow.” 

This cacao tastes like the wild. Deep. Rooted. You sense the forest floor, the canopy, the rain. It is cacao that says: “Remember you are earth.” When you sip it, your circuits open to a wider world. It’s less about emotional heart-opening and more about expansion, nature-alignment, renewal.

So when you hold that cup of Dalileo cacao, allow yourself to traverse beyond the self. Feel the forest. Feel the roots beneath you. Feel time in slow motion.

Your Ritual Latte, Heart-Opening Edition

Here is how to craft your sacred beverage in the spirit of Farmatuur. Because the how is everything.

Ingredients

• Plant-milk of choice, we use The Bridge Barista Oat Milk, made with safflower oil (instead of rapeseed oil) and spring water.
• 15-20 g ceremonial cacao (choose Ruk’u’x U’lew, Keith’s, or Dalileo)
• 1 teaspoon raw organic cacao, we use Erbology's Raw Organic Cacao.
• PFAS-free milk-foamer
• 5 droppers (or recommended serving) of Wunder Workshop Sacred Heart, Rose Tincture (rose for heart-opening, courage, gentle grounding)
• Topped with 1/4 teaspoon freeze-dried Raspberry powder from Loov, harvested from wild forests around Tallinn (rich in vitamin C, polyphenols, antioxidants)
  

Preparation & Ritual

1. Crush the ceremonial cacao into fine powder.
2. Add the ceremonial cacao + raw cacao + rose tincture to the plant-based milk.
3. Froth until you have a beautiful, silky, velvety foam, in a milk frother that doesn't go passed 65 °C
4. Pour into your favourite mug.
5. Pause. Hold the mug close to your heart. Feel the warmth transfer from the cup into your chest. Breathe deeply. Let your heart synchronise with this drink. Ask your heart: “Are you ready for a lovingly and creative openness? ”
6. Add the raspberry powder on top. Observe the colour. Inhale the aroma. Notice how the berry and cacao dance together.
7. Sip slowly, with gratitude. Let the flavours, the medicine, the moment swirl in your body and consciousness.

Added Wellness & Heart-Benefits

• The rose tincture supports deeper heart-centre opening, emotional healing, courage and self-love. Rose is known to bring movement into the body, soothe the nervous system and support the immune system and liver. 
• The Raspberry powder adds antioxidants, vitamin C, which supports your immune system and adds a fresh, lively layer to rich cacao.
• The ceremonial cacao brings not just magnesium, iron and polyphenols, but a subtle theobromine-rich energy that supports heart health, circulation, creativity and emotional openness. 
• By holding and honouring the drink before consumption you create a mindful pause: slowing down your nervous system, bridging body + breath + intention, this is a powerful wellness practice in itself.

In Conclusion: Drink From the Heart

When you sip any one of these cacao offerings, from Ruk’u’x U’lew, Keith’s, or Dalileo, you are not only ingesting a plant. You are entering a lineage.
You are connecting to women’s work, to shamanic devotion, to forest regeneration.
You are aligning with your heart centre. You are telling your body: “I choose more than flavour. I choose ceremony. I choose opening.”

And when you hold the cup first to your heart, breathe, feel gratitude, you mark it sacred. You mark it medicine.

So choose the cacao that calls you. Warm the milk. Add the rose. Hold the cup.
And drink, slowly, with love.