Every Cup Begins With Connection
Long before cacao reaches your hands, she has already been part of many relationships. She begins in the forest, growing among diverse plants, trees, and living ecosystems. She is tended and harvested by farming communities, fermented and dried with care, and passed through the hands of women’s collectives who carefully peel each bean by hand. From there, she continues through the people who source her, share her story, prepare her, and eventually, the person holding the cup. Every step carries something forward: the care of the land, the knowledge of generations, the work of many hands, and the relationships that make her journey possible. At Seed of Love, sourcing single origin cacao allows us to honour these relationships more deeply, keeping each harvest connected to the place and people it came from rather than allowing those stories to disappear along the way.
For us, this is part of what makes cacao ceremonial. Ceremony is not created only in the final moment when we sit down with a warm cup in our hands. It lives in the relationship present throughout the entire journey: in the forest that nourishes the cacao, the farmers who care for her, the women whose hands prepare each bean, the people who carry her forward, and the intention with which we eventually prepare and receive her. We believe that when we slow down enough to recognize these relationships, a cup of cacao becomes more than something we consume. It becomes an opportunity to remember our connection to the land, to one another, and to all the visible and unseen hands that made the moment possible.
From seed to cup, every step of her journey is a labour of love
Each seed carries a prayer: that these lands, people, and traditions continue to flourish for generations to come
Sourcing With Care
When choosing who to source cacao through, ethics and transparency were deeply important to me. In 2024, I travelled to Guatemala and had the opportunity to meet Jojo, one of the founders of Cacao Source, someone who approaches this work with a lot of heart and care, and to experience cacao in ceremony on the land where it is grown. What I experienced was a genuine care for the work, in the way relationships are built, in the support of farmers and women’s collectives, and in the intention to keep learning and improving over time. Cacao Source works directly with farming communities across distinct cacao growing regions, keeping each harvest traceable to a single origin. Their work also includes supporting independent women’s collectives involved in artisan cacao production, allowing the many people and relationships behind each block to remain an important part of its story.
This is an evolving system, shaped by care, accountability, and respect for the people and ecosystems at its foundation. For more detailed information, you can visit Cacao Source’s website, where they share transparency reports with information about their sourcing practices, farm relationships, financial impact, ongoing challenges, and testing such as heavy metal analysis. I believe transparency also means being open to questions, so if there is anything not covered here, please feel free to reach out. I am committed to sharing as much clarity and information as possible as this work continues to evolve.
With love & cacao,
Jess
