If you’ve tried ceremonial cacao and found it bitter, gritty or a bit of an effort to drink, you’re not alone. It’s one of the things I hear most often. Someone tries a cup, decides it’s something to put up with for the benefits, and never goes back.
“Ceremonial grade” tells you the cacao is whole, minimally processed and made with intention. It doesn’t tell you much about how it will taste. That comes down to a handful of choices every producer has to make, and those choices are where Cacaopura is different.
1. The variety of bean
Not all ceremonial cacao is Criollo. Ours is. Criollo is one of the rarer cacao varieties, grown in the Peruvian rainforest, and it’s known for a softer, more aromatic flavour with less natural bitterness. It’s a starting point, though. Even the best bean can taste harsh if what comes next isn’t right.
2. How strict we are about fermentation
After harvest, cacao beans are fermented for several days. This is where most of the flavour develops. Bitterness softens and the deeper, rounder notes start to come through. When fermentation is uneven or cut short, the cacao tends to taste sour, sharp and bitter.
Every maker decides how much variation they’re willing to accept. We set the bar high. Only around half of the cacao harvested meets our standard for Cacaopura. The rest isn’t wasted, it goes to other producers for different products. It just isn’t what we want in your cup.
If you’ve ever had a ceremonial cacao with a sharp, acidic edge, fermentation is often the reason.
3. How finely it’s refined
Once selected, the beans are cleaned carefully to remove husk and impurities, then ground and refined. Refining decides the texture. Some ceremonial cacao is left quite coarse, which is where that grainy feel and the sediment in the bottom of the mug come from.
We refine ours to a finer texture, so it melts fully and feels silky rather than chalky. Combined with careful fermentation, the bitterness is balanced instead of dominant. Most people notice it in the first sip: it’s smoother than they expected ceremonial cacao to be.
4. The format
Most ceremonial cacao comes as a solid block that you chop or grate before every cup. It works and is part of the ceremony for many, but it's also slow, messy and hard to measure consistently, which is often why a daily ritual quietly slips in our busy lives and cacao becomes something to come back to occasionally.
Our cacao is pressed into small coins. They melt quickly and evenly, you can measure them by eye, and there’s nothing to chop. That makes having a cup realistic on an ordinary day: before the children wake up, between meetings, before yoga, or in twenty minutes you keep for yourself.
5. Made by hand
The coins are slow to make. Hand-printing a single batch takes around eight hours. We work with Indigenous communities in Peru, and local women hand-finish the coins. I love knowing that each one has passed through skilled hands, and that the work brings income and opportunity into the communities our cacao comes from. That matters to me as much as the taste.
Getting the best from your cup
However good the cacao, preparation makes a difference. Don’t boil it. Keep your water or milk at around 70–80°C, as very high heat can flatten the flavour and affect the natural compounds in raw cacao. Melt the coins slowly, whisk until smooth, and give yourself a minute with it before you drink.
Why taste matters this much
I’ve tasted a lot of ceremonial cacao over the years, and I’ve met many people who gave up on it because they thought it had to taste bitter. I don’t want anyone drinking cacao out of duty. If it tastes good, you’ll come back to it, and regularity is where cacao gives the most: sustained, jitter-free energy, feeling of warmth, a calm nervous system, and a quiet moment of pause in your day - cup after cup.
When I say Cacaopura tastes different, I mean everything behind it: the bean, the fermentation, the texture, the format and the people who make it, all working towards cacao that honours where it comes from, fits into real life, and tastes good enough that it becomes effortlessly part of your daily life.
If you'd like to try it yourself, our smaller 250g bag is a perfect place to start.
With love,
Lenka
Founder, Cacaopura
