Enhanced 100% Ceremonial Cacao

4.9
Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars
522 Reviews

Mystical Mushroom

Activate your highest potential and find optimal health as this medicinal synergy of mushrooms with ceremonial cacao gives a boost to your body and spirit. The taste of the mushrooms blends seamlessly with the cacao, creating a flavor more like an earthy cacao than one of mushrooms! Due to the vasodilating and gentle cardiac stimulant properties of the ceremonial cacao, it acts as an optimal delivery mechanism for the mushrooms we've carefully selected. 

Our mushroom friends in this blend include reishi, chaga, turkey tail, lion’s mane, cordyceps, maitake, shiitake, oyster, poria, phellinus, and tremella. Our mushrooms are 1:1 water extracted from the fruiting body only for highest medicinal content, and triple lab tested for purity and safety. That means no grains or fillers involved and completely gluten free. The mushroom themselves are grown on buried wooden logs in hoop houses to mimic a natural environment, not in laboratories.

Ingredients

Cacao Beans from Belize, Reishi, Chaga, Turkey Tail, Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Maitake, Shiitake, Oyster, Poria, Phellinus, and Tremella

Mood

Calming, Nourishing, Grounding

Best For

Immune Support and Healing

Flavor Profile

Stone, Oak, Brie (these are tasting notes, not ingredients)

VOLUME DISCOUNTS

Mix & match any of our cacaos. Automatic discounts applied in cart for 3 or more one pound bags or 2 or more five pound bags.

Contains 20 servings, $2.75 per serving
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522 reviews
  • Jill R.
    Verified Buyer
    4 weeks ago
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Another Perfect Cup

    This is one of my favorite enhanced cacaos by Ora, because it’s an opportunity to easily get mushroom nutrition without even thinking about it. As with all of the Ora Cacao varieties, it’s delicious and I highly recommend it.

  • el a.
    Verified Buyer
    1 month ago
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Mushroom

    Best in immunity

  • Marianne H.
    Verified Buyer
    1 month ago
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Delicious

    I tried this product first in coffee (about 10 discs), and it was whoa! way too much. Then I tried just a few discs in coffee, and that was ok. BUT, far superior to that is a cup of just hot water and 10 discs, with just a wee dollop of maple syrup. That was perfect. I am a dark chocolate appreciator (mostly in the 85-95% dark range), so this, with just a hint o sweetness, was just delicious.

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Ingredients

FRUITING BODY ONLY
We only use fruiting body mushrooms, a rarity in the US. When people commonly say the word “mushroom”, they are referring to the fruiting body of the basidiomycete organism. This organism also has two other parts, the mycelium and the spore. Frequently however the word “mushroom” is used to refer to the entire organism.

This misconception is abused by marketers selling cheap mushroom powders - most US producers sell ground up mycelium in substrate (usually starch), which due to poor regulation in the US supplement industry is allowed to be labelled as mushrooms. The starch has no medicinal value and is considered a filler. And the majority of the medicinal value is actually concentrated in the fruiting body, the true mushroom, not the mycelium. So be careful - when you think you are buying true mushrooms, in most likelihood you are actually buying a bunch of starch and some mycelium. It’s not the same.

1:1 WATER EXTRACTED
Why do we offer a 1:1 extract? Pre-digesting the mushroom with water extraction makes it more bioavailable than the raw mushroom itself.
A one to one extract starts with a finely milled mushroom powder. This powder is extracted for 3 hours in hot water at 80 C. After this extraction, much of the water is evaporated to produce a concentrated fluid. This fluid still contains the mushroom powder. At this time the powder-filled fluid is sent to the spray drier which creates a fine powder. The most important takeaway of this process is the fact that the raw material is never separated from the extraction fluid. This means that nothing from the original mushroom is lost or discarded.

Water extraction mobilizes the soluble beta-glucans and most other nutritional compounds from the fiber. Research has shown that the most immunologically active compounds in mushrooms are the soluble beta-glucans.

Ethical Trade Regenerative Agroforestry USDA Organic Sugar-Free Third Party Lab Tested Metals Safe Vegan & Keto GMO-Free & Soy-Free

Ethical Trade Regenerative Agroforestry USDA Organic Sugar-Free Third Party Metals Tested Vegan & Keto GMO-Free & Soy-Free

I became excited about mushrooms when I first began wild harvesting reishi and chaga in forests on the East Coast.

I would slice up my mushrooms and steep them in hot water for many hours to extract the medicinal compounds into a mushroom tea. Then I would use this tea as the base for my cup of cacao, instead of my usual hot water. I loved the health benefits of these mushrooms tea and cacao blends, but I knew most people wouldn’t have the time or privilege to wild harvest and spend hours making tea. So instead I discovered how to take water extracted mushroom powders, and to grind those into the cacao so that the cacao discs are fully ready to use and bioavailable. Along the way I discovered many more amazing mushrooms I loved using which is why we have eleven in this recipe!

Grounding and nurturing, connecting to our root energy center, our connection to the physical.

With eleven powerful immune boosting mushrooms, this cacao supports rooting and centering by connecting to the ancient heart of the earth. It has recently been found that the first mushrooms evolved on Earth between 715 and 810 million years ago, way before the first plants showed up here! By consciously tuning into the wisdom of our mushroom friends you can bring about support and nourishment to your physical body while opening your heart.

  • Superfoods Without Cacao

  • Ora Enhanced Cacao

  • INFREQUENT USAGE

  • REGULAR USE

  • HARD TO MEASURE

  • ALREADY BLENDED

  • POOR ABSORPTION

  • DEEP TISSUE ABSORPTION

  • GRITTY

  • AS SMOOTH AS CACAO

  • STRANGE FLAVOR

  • DELICIOUS

  • QUESTIONABLE SOURCING

  • ORA DIRECT TRADE

Preparing Your Cacao

  • Step 1

    Combine about 25 cacao discs with a touch of sweetener (or drink pure).

  • Step 2

    Add 3/4 cup (6oz) hot water, tea, or mylk (~180F).

  • Step 3

    Use a blender or electric frother to mix for 10 seconds.

Answers to Frequent Health Questions

What are the Nutrition Facts?

Is Your Cacao Tested for Heavy Metals?

Yes! We take heavy metals in cacao very seriously and have been testing long before the recent media attention on the topic.

All of our cacao has no detectable levels of lead. Lead is a post harvest contaminant that is introduced onto cacao beans through air and soils pollution. Since we source from remote and pristine regions with exacting standards, we have never had any presence of lead in our cacao tests.

All of our cacao also tests well below the legal limits for cadmium. Cadmium is present in many soils and impacts much of the food that we eat. Even if you were to consume cacao daily and it had the legal limit of cadmium in it, experts estimate that is would contribute at most 10% of your daily cadmium intake that comes from other grains and vegetables.

We've been talking with people daily to assure them that they will not die from heavy metals poisoning because of their love of chocolate. We strongly believe big chocolate needs to be held accountable for poor quality of their products. We're also disappointed that a lot of the recent media didn't contextualize the many cadmium sources people have in their diets (not just cacao), and that there are very large factors of safety that are used to determine the legal limits.

Here's a good third party perspective on the topic: https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/despite-spooky-consumer-reports-testing-metals-in-chocolates-arent-scary/

Why are there Rainbow Bubbles in my Cacao?

All of the following answers are true - pick what works best for you!

1) The cacao senses your awesomeness. Only the blessed few can actually see them, so, you must be awesome.

2) Thin-film interference. Cacao is rich in oils that can spread out in very thin layers on the water-based beverage. The different wavelengths of light have different kinds of interference between the top and bottom surfaces of the oil so white light turns into iridescent rainbows.

3) It's energetic residue from the rainbow serpent that emerged from the first cacao tree a very long time ago (for real - cacao is considered an original world tree in the Maya cosmosvision)

How is this different than cacao powder?

We typically tell our customers that cacao powder has little medicinal or health value because of the following differences:

1) Cacao powder is often made with untraceable, low quality commodity cacao that doesn’t support farmers with ethical compensation. By contrast, Ora sources direct trade traceable to the farmer and with organic certification.

2) This low quality input necessitates processing at very high temperatures, which degrades many of the beneficial compounds in cacao. The process of dutch processing or alkalization to make the flavor milder further reduces the levels of these compounds. By contrast, Ora's premium inputs enable us to use uniquely low temperature processing that keep the value of the cacao bean intact.

3) The cacao bean on it's own is about 50% cacao butter, a healthy natural fat. Pressing for powder strips away most of this fat (reducing it to 10%). However, you want cacao as a whole food, with the cacao butter in it's natural ratio. That's because the fat is an essential carrier for the health benefits of cacao, so without it, many of the health benefits of cacao are unrealized. By contrast, Ora ceremonial cacao has nothing added or removed, so it is a whole food as nature designed it.

Is Cacao A Stimulant?

We’ve tested our cacao and it has 36 mg of caffeine per 1 oz serving, or about 1/3 of what a regular cup of coffee has. It sounds like a lot, but 1mg of caffeine in cacao is not equivalent to 1mg of caffeine in coffee, because cacao has many other compounds that balance and down-regulate the caffeine.

The primarily stimulant molecule in cacao is actually theobromine. Ora Cacao has 212mg theobromine per 1oz serving. Theobromine is a mild cardiac stimulant, and differs molecularly from caffeine which is a nervous system stimulant. Theobromine gives a long lasting, gentle, embodied energy without any sort of jitters or crash, even for sensitive people. Overall, theobromine is only about one quarter as stimulating as caffeine, and it has a much longer half life in the liver, meaning that it's effect on the body is softer and longer for sustained energy.

Theobromine is also a vasodilator (it relaxes blood vessels), so it has a neutral effect on blood pressure. The improved circulation from cacao is excellent for cardiac health, and improves absorption of the nutrients in cacao and superfoods that it is paired with.

Ceremonial cacao is a great coffee replacement because it offers a grounded energy boost without the jitters and crash. You can fully or partially substitute your cup of coffee with a cup of cacao. If you are new to cacao we recommend drinking it before 2pm so that the stimulant effect has time to clear before you need to sleep.

How Does Cacao Affect Mood?

In the long term, regularly working with ceremonial cacao can have therapeutic health benefits that include creating new neural pathways that change our daily experience to include more joy, love, and connection.

That's because cacao is full of beneficial neurotransmitters and neuro-modulators. It also contains reuptake inhibitors that block the pathways that our bodies normally use to break down and recycle these beneficial mood altering molecules, so the good mood lasts for longer.

Some of the top mood altering molecules in cacao include:

Anandamide is commonly referred to as the bliss molecule, and is associated with the runner’s high effect. It is actually the first endocannabinoid to be discovered, and it is well known for moderating pain. Cacao also has N-linoleoylethanolamine, which is the reuptake inhibitor for anandamide.

Phenylethylamine (PEA) gives the perception of time slowing down, and helps with excitement, alertness, attention.

Norepinephrine is commonly referred to as the joy molecule. It is both a neurotransmitter and a hormone.

Serotonin - Helps with wellbeing, and creates resistance to stress. Cacao contains typtophan, an amino acid that the body converts into serotonin, and cacao contains MOA inhibitors that inhibit reuptake of serotonin.

Dopamine - Gives feelings of motivation and pleasure. Cacao contains tyrosine, an amino acid that the body converts into dopamine, and cacao contains MOA inhibitors that inhibit re-uptake of dopamine.

Due to these molecules and many others, when you drink ceremonial cacao you may feel expansive, blissful, connected to self and/or others, inspired, connected to your intuition & vision, connected to spirit, grounded, you may have emotions arise, and you may experience the movement of stuck energy. Gives the perception of time slowing down.

What Minerals Does Cacao Have?

Consuming cacao can replenish minerals vital to our body. Magnesium is chronically deficient in the majority of western diets, and cacao is the highest naturally occurring source. Magnesium is used in all key brain functions, especially memory and concentration. It is also beneficial for the function of the heart, acting to relax blood vessels and decrease strain. Besides magnesium, cacao is also the highest naturally occurring source of chromium, and also high in copper, calcium, manganese, zinc, sulfur, iron, and phosphorus.

Are there any Contradindications?

Cacao is contraindicated with SSRIs. Unfortunately that means many people struggling with depression and other mental illnesses cannot take cacao because of the SSRI’s they are medicating with. There is potential that people may be able to partially reduce their SSRI medication intake and supplement with ceremonial cacao, however medical studies on this need to be done to establish a verifiable protocol.

Besides this, we highly recommend being well hydrated before, during, and after drinking cacao.

Not sure where to start with Cacao?

That's okay, you can try them all! Our best selling enhanced ceremonial cacao kit allows you to try all four of our sugar free enhanced cacaos!

Continue your cacao journey

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