Farm-direct · Lab-tested · Felt in fifteen minutes
Cacao works on every level you do
One cup reaches the body, the mind, the heart and the parts of you that don't have names yet. Here is what it touches, and what's in it that does the touching.
Cacao physically, sensorially, and chemically opens the doors to the heart.Neil Ryan Dumra · founder
01 · Physical Warm hands in fifteen minutes 7 more
- Four to six hours of energy, and no crash to pay back
- Circulation you can feel in your fingers and feet
- Magnesium, iron and zinc in whole-food form, not a capsule
- Muscles let go — the cup after yoga or training
- The afternoon sugar craving goes quiet
- Works for people whose bodies refuse caffeine
- Open airways and open vessels, without a stimulant
Theobromine · 250–500 mg per 42 g cup · half-life 6–10 h
02 · Mental Focus without the tension 5 more
- Clarity that lasts a whole working morning
- Measurably more blood flow to the brain
- The doorway most people find their creativity through
- Attention enough to hold a two-hour circle
- Sharpest on an empty stomach, first thing
Cocoa flavanols · epicatechin · alert without the caffeine spike
03 · Emotional Heart-opening, and we mean it literally 5 more
- Cacao dilates the vessels around your heart — the poetry is physiology
- Mood softens, without anything going numb
- Whatever you have been carrying gets easier to feel
- The self-talk turns gentler
- You stay lucid and in your body the whole time
Anandamide · PEA · MAO inhibitors · tryptophan
04 · Nervous system Calm and awake at the same time 4 more
- The body downshifts out of bracing
- Regular drinkers describe a lower baseline of reactivity
- Supports sleep quality — if the cup happens before early afternoon
- The end-of-day drink that isn't a drink
Magnesium · ≈64 mg per cup · the mineral most of us are short of
05 · Chemical Everything in the cup, named and measured 7 more
- Theobromine — gentle, long, nothing like a caffeine hit
- Magnesium — one of the richest plant sources on earth
- Anandamide — named for ananda, Sanskrit for bliss
- PEA — the molecule your body makes when you fall in love
- MAO inhibitors — why the lift lasts hours, not minutes
- 300+ polyphenols — measured across the full DP1–DP7 spectrum
- Intact cacao butter — not a filler, the carrier
No dairy · no fillers · no alkalization · nothing stripped out
06 · Energetic Presence you can rest inside 4 more
- Grounded, and awake in the body rather than above it
- Gentle activation — opening without force
- Energy that isn't borrowed from tomorrow
- Cacao opens you; it never takes you anywhere
Traditionally used for heart-centre practice
07 · Spiritual The passage from head to heart 5 more
- Meditation goes deeper without dulling awareness
- An intention you drink instead of think
- Breathwork, sound and yoga all land harder
- A smaller evening dose opens a different door
- A ritual people actually keep, because it tastes like one
Traditional Maya and Mexica use · four thousand years of it
08 · Social A room becomes safe to speak in 4 more
- Connection without alcohol, and a clear head in the morning
- People drop their guard sooner than they expect to
- The instrument facilitators reach for to open a circle
- Ten years of gathering in Austin behind it
Cacao is a social technology as much as a drink
09 · Ancestral One hundred miles on foot with the Kogi and Arhuaco 4 more
- Maya and Mexica medicine long before it was a wellness product
- Theobroma — literally, food of the gods
- Yanesha lineage in the Peruvian Amazon, Criollo older than the market
- Prepared the old way: stone-ground, no dairy, no alkalization
Lots named for the communities that grew them
10 · Planetary Farm-direct, and we can name the farm 4 more
- Permaculture and biodynamic — cacao under the canopy, not instead of it
- Because metals begin in the ground, clean cacao needs living soil
- Traceability is the mechanism that gets value back to the grower
- Heirloom Criollo and Trinitario survive because someone keeps buying them
Peru · Ecuador · Oaxaca · Dominican Republic · Colombia · Guatemala
11 · Verified Every batch, read three ways 4 more
- Genetics — heirloom lineage confirmed, traced to farm
- Potency — flavanols measured across DP1 to DP7
- Heavy metals — arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead, every lot
- Published lot by lot. If it doesn't clear, it doesn't carry our name
Eurofins (flavanols) · Cora Science (metals) · labs that don't work for us
Most of that we can measure. Some of it is the part science is still working to fully explain — and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
The Cacao Flavanoid Index
Every claim above has a lab report behind it.
We built the CFI because reverence without honesty is only a story. Every batch is read three ways by laboratories that don't work for us — and we publish what comes back, lot by lot.
A note on all of the above. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Ceremonial cacao is a food, not a medicine, and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The effects described are traditional uses and commonly reported experiences; they vary from person to person. Cacao contains natural MAO inhibitors — if you take SSRIs, MAOIs or other prescription medication, speak with your healthcare provider before drinking it. Not recommended at ceremonial doses during pregnancy. Start at 14–21 g if you are sensitive. Theobromine is toxic to dogs and cats.