Whole organic cacao beans from Peru — fermented, dried and left unroasted. Intensely bitter, faintly fruity, and nothing whatsoever like chocolate as most people know it.
What you are actually buying
The seed of Theobroma cacao. Pods are cut from the tree, the beans and their white pulp are scooped out and left to ferment for several days — which is where nearly all chocolate flavour is actually created, before any roasting happens — and then dried in the sun.
At that point they become chocolate only if someone roasts them, cracks off the shell, grinds the nib for hours and adds sugar and often milk and extra cocoa butter. None of that has happened here. What is in the bag is the raw material: bitter, astringent, dense and complex, with the fruit notes that Peruvian cacao is known for.
If you are expecting something that tastes like a chocolate bar, you will not enjoy these. If you are curious about what chocolate is before it becomes confectionery, they are fascinating.
How to eat them
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Crack off the shell — press a bean between finger and thumb and the papery husk splits away. Inside is the nib, which is what you eat. Some people eat the shell too; it is edible but woody.
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Chop the nibs into granola, porridge, yoghurt, banana bread or cookie dough, where they behave like an intensely bitter chocolate chip that does not melt.
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One or two beans with an espresso — the classic way to eat them, and the bitterness makes sense in that context.
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Blend them into a smoothie with banana and dates, which supply the sweetness they lack.
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Grind them for a very intense, unsweetened drinking chocolate — closer to what cacao was drunk as in Mesoamerica than to modern hot chocolate.
Three honest notes
1. Cadmium. This is rarely mentioned and it should be. Cacao takes up cadmium from soil, and cacao from parts of South America — Peru among them — runs higher in it than West African cacao. The European Union sets maximum cadmium levels for cocoa and chocolate products for exactly this reason, and certified product sold in the EU is tested against them. There is nothing alarming about eating cacao; there is a reason not to eat very large amounts of raw cacao every day, and this is it. Treat it as an ingredient rather than a daily superfood ration.
2. Theobromine and caffeine. Cacao contains both. Theobromine is a mild stimulant that lasts considerably longer in the body than caffeine does, which is why a large amount of very dark chocolate late in the evening keeps some people awake. Cacao is also a recognised migraine trigger for some. Raw cacao is more concentrated than a chocolate bar, so a small quantity goes further than you expect.
3. Dogs and cats. Theobromine is what makes chocolate poisonous to dogs, and raw cacao beans contain more of it than almost any chocolate product. These are among the most dangerous things in a kitchen for a dog. Keep the bag closed and well out of reach, and if a dog eats any, ring your vet immediately — do not wait for symptoms. The same applies to cats, who are simply less inclined to eat them.
What may and may not be claimed
There is one authorised EU health claim in this area, and it is narrow: cocoa flavanols help maintain the elasticity of blood vessels, which contributes to normal blood flow — usable only where 200 mg of cocoa flavanols are consumed daily, from a specified quantity of high-flavanol cocoa. Flavanol content in whole beans depends on the variety, the fermentation and the drying, and we cannot verify that this batch meets that condition, so we are not applying the claim to it.
Nothing else about cacao — mood, energy, antioxidants, magnesium — is authorised. Buy these because they are a genuinely interesting ingredient with a flavour you cannot get any other way.
Storage
Cool, dry, dark and airtight. Cacao butter absorbs surrounding smells readily, so keep them away from spices and anything strong.
Iswari
Iswari
Iswari
Iswari
