Before chocolate became candy, it was a ritual.
Before it was sweet, it was sacred. Before it was wrapped in gold foil, it was whisked into clay cups — bitter, spiced, frothed into clouds, and offered to gods and kings.
In Oaxaca, cacao still remembers what it once was.
This isn't just a journey through flavor. It's a step back into Mesoamerican time, where chocolate wasn't indulgence — it was identity.
Start at the source. Not in a factory or a boutique shop, but beneath the canopy of the Sierra Mixe, where Theobroma cacao — "food of the gods" — still grows in small, shaded groves.
In these hills, cacao isn't grown industrially. It's:
This cacao doesn't travel far. It rarely leaves the valley. And when it does, it ends up not in supermarkets, but in rituals.
Long before colonial sugar reshaped its destiny, cacao in Mesoamerica was used in spiritual practice.
In Zapotec and Mixtec traditions, cacao was a medium — a way to speak to ancestors, to the earth, to what lives unseen. It was:
You don't drink cacao quickly in Oaxaca. You sip it slow, like a language. You let the bitterness settle. You taste the spices bloom.
In villages outside San José del Pacífico and Teotitlán del Valle, ceremonies still occur — small, unadvertised, sacred:
There is no barista. There is no Wi-Fi. There is only cacao, memory, and the mountain air.
If you want to understand how cacao survives in everyday life, go to the markets — early, before the crowds, when the molinillos (wooden whisks) are already turning.
Where stone wheels grind fresh chocolate blends of cacao, sugar, cinnamon, almond, and sometimes vanilla — each family's recipe distinct.
Here, chocolate is breakfast. It's comfort. It's medicine. It's morning prayer disguised as a mug.
No journey through Oaxacan cacao is complete without entering the realm of mole — not one sauce, but many.
The most revered variety includes:
In Santa María Atzompa, cooks prepare mole like their grandmothers taught them — slowly, prayerfully, without shortcuts.
They'll let you stir. They'll let you taste. But they won't give you the full recipe. Some things aren't written down.
For many Oaxacans — especially Indigenous communities — cacao is more than food or flavor. It's a form of resistance:
Workshops in towns like San Martín Tilcajete and Tlacolula are bringing back ceremonial cacao — not as a trend, but as a remembering.
You learn that every part of the cacao has a role. Nothing is wasted. Not in flavor. Not in meaning.
You carry the smell of roasted cacao shells in your scarf. You carry the taste of bitter drink on your tongue. You carry a small, round disk of table chocolate, wrapped in paper, slightly cracked, ready to melt into memory.
And maybe, just maybe, you carry something else — the understanding that cacao is not dessert.
It is history. It is spirit. It is a seed that refuses to forget where it came from.
Small villages outside San José del Pacífico and Teotitlán del Valle occasionally host ceremonies. Ask locally and respectfully — these are spiritual practices, not tourist performances.
Ceremonial cacao is pure, minimally processed, and contains no sweeteners or additives. It's prepared with intention and consumed as a ritual, not a treat.
Yes! Look for table chocolate disks at Mercado Benito Juárez or specialty shops like Mayordomo. They travel well and make authentic hot chocolate.