Enhanced 100% Ceremonial Cacao

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Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars
225 Reviews

Oaxacan Spice

On some days you just need a little extra celebration and motivation, and this enhanced ceremonial cacao elevates you quickly as our blend of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and cayenne get your circulation pulsing. The spices are warming and quicken the effect of the cacao, making it a cold weather favorite, but we'll happily drink this one even when it's warm out.

Ancient peoples of Central & South America loved drinking their chocolate hot and spicy rather than sugary. This is a modern interpretation of ancient Mayan drinking chocolate honoring our Zapotec elder Maria. She taught us the time-honored ways of chocolate making in Oaxaca by roasting cacao beans over on open fire on a clay comal, carefully hand peeling the cacao beans, and then grinding the cacao with spices on a metate (hand stone grinder). Through this special cacao, we give gratitude to the roots of cacao ceremony.

Ingredients

Cacao Beans from Guatemala, Cinnamon from Sri Lanka, Cardamom from Guatemala, Ginger from China, Cayenne from India

Mood

Celebratory, Elevating, Warming

Best For

Circulatory Support and Community

Flavor Profile

Chili, Cinnamon, Cardamom (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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225 reviews
  • Charles
    4 minutes ago
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    5 Stars

    Pair with the wooden cups....to enhance the Ora Cacao experience ❣️😎

  • Shalom M.
    Verified Buyer
    3 weeks ago
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Cacao with a punch

    I love the gentle and tasteful kick that Oaxacan Spice adds to my morning cacao mix.

  • Stephen Z.
    Verified Buyer
    1 month ago
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Awesome

    Excellent morning drink!

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Ingredients

CEYLON CINNAMON
Ceylon cinnamon, or "true" cinnamon provides the foundation of the Oaxacan Spice Cacao with its distinctive warming properties, smell & flavor. Similar to cacao, ceylon cinnamon is rich in antioxidants and supports the heart. We currently source from Sri Lanka; formerly known as Ceylon.

GINGER
This cacao blend wouldn't be complete without ginger. Warming, invigorating and delicious. It adds depth, spice and complexity to this already rich blend.

CARDAMOM
Also belonging to the ginger family, cardamom rounds out the spice profile of the Oaxacan Spice Cacao. Typically associated with chai cardamom lends a subtle and unique flavor experience to your cup. To guarantee freshness and potency we source whole seeds that we later reduce to powder immediately before adding them to cacao.

CAYENNE
Known for its spicy pepper flavor and ability to warm the body, cayenne makes the recipe "pop". The subtle amount added isn't enough to deter the sensitive though enough to enjoy. You can't have a complete Oaxacan blend without cayenne.

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

My original drinking chocolate

Long before I even began to sell ceremonial cacao, I would take my spicy chocolate bar and melt it down to make a cup of rich drinking chocolate. This experience led me to my first spiritual connections with cacao, and showed me that even more so than eating a chocolate bar I loved the ritual of drinking a cup of cacao. Every time that I drink this I think of the ancient cacao cultures, because they drank their cacao spicy rather than sweet. I can only dream of the many spicy cacao recipes they had utilizing various local chilis!

Awakens the fire within and connects to the solar plexus center, the home of personal power.

The element correlating to this energy center is fire and the organic spices ground into the cacao are all spices that stoke the fire within our bodies physically and energetically. All four spices in this blend, ginger, cayenne, cardamom, and cinnamon are circulatory and digestive aids boosting the functioning of the digestive organs. On an energetic level, this cacao awakens the fire within,

  • 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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