Preparation & Serving

Trying Cacao for the first time? We cover the full process of preparing your Cacao

Preparing Cacao from a Block

This is the best way to prepare the block of cacao paste:

Chop off little bits of the cacao into finely chopped small pieces.
When chopping it up, it can be easier to use a big, high-quality knife.
You can also use a blender, but do not blend it for too long, or it will melt and stick to the blender.
The size of the chopped-up cacao should be small pieces that are approximately one quarter of an inch or 6 milometers. It can also be smaller than this but shouldn’t be bigger than this.
While chopping the cacao, you can put intentions into the cacao. You can sing, pray, or have thoughts of gratitude.

How much Cacao should you use to prepare your drink?

5 - 10 grams
This amount is recommended for people who are new to drinking cacao and for those who do not usually drink caffeine.
This is a small amount of cacao, for beginners.
It can be used as a way to micro dose cacao. Some people use micro doses everyday, for example micro doses of cacao in the mornings.
10 - 25 grams
This amount can be used for people who are more used to drinking cacao or caffeine products.
You will notice some of the stimulating and heart opening effects.
25 – 35 grams
This amount is used when someone is wanting to increase their creativity or to meditate.
Someone could take this amount during retreats before mild aerobic activity such as dancing or yoga
This is a dose that could be given at a cacao ceremony.
35 - 42 grams
This is the most common ceremonial dose, we like to use 42 grams per person in our longer, deeper ceremonies. The effects of this size dose are usually quite prominent and can be felt in the body, often opening the heart and bringing a release. It is not really recommended to drink more than this as it can make people feel sick or uncomfortable. This amount is already high.

Weighing your Cacao

To weigh the cacao, you could use a small scale. You can also use teaspoons or measuring cups, whatever works best for your own personal ritual and use.

For a ceremony of 16 to 20 people, you may need to use anything from 670 grams – 840 grams of cacao. Please do your calculations considering the experience of the group and the time when the ceremony will be held as you will not want to give them a high amount of cacao if the ceremony is in the evening, because they might have problems to fall sleep at night.

Adding Water to the Cacao

Once the cacao is chopped up, you can now add hot water to it. The water should not be boiling because it would lose the nutrients. It needs to be approximately 60 degrees Celsius.

You can experiment with the cacao to see how much water you would like to add to it. If you would like it to be thicker, you wouldn’t add as much water.

The basic recipie is around 230 millilitres of water which is one mug. If you would like your cacao thicker try 180 millilitres or less, experiment and see what you like.

If you want more liquid try anything up to 295 millilitres, anything more it would usually be to watery.

Flavouring your Cacao

You can infuse the hot water with herbs and/or spices for added flavours and sensations. Some Examples are:

Cayenne
Black pepper
Turmeric
Ginger
Spices

When you mix the water with the cacao, you can use a hand blender or a regular blender. This can make it a bit frothy. After blending it, you can pour it into a cup.

Another mixing option is using a whisk and adding the hot water slowly, little bits of water at a time. You would mix it, and then once it is mixed, add a bit more water.

You can sing or pray while mixing it, as a part of the intention setting and ceremony. For example, you can give thanks to the Indigenous people of South America who first began using cacao. You can give thanks to all of the work that went into processing the cacao for you to be able to drink it and share it with others.

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