CACAO WITH INTEGRITY
Meet Our Cacao
Our cacao is co-created with the Q’eqchi community in their ancestral territory, from tree to block.
Know how your cacao grows.
Red Ratzum: BEYOND FAIR TRADE
Tuqtuquilal takes a step beyond “fair trade” to prioritize building an ecosystem of relationships, starting with the Red Ratzum. The Red Ratzum Cacao Collective is the agricultural production network of 65 Q'eqchi families woven by Tuqtuquilal across four communities—San Juan Chivite, Chicanchiu, Saquija', and Chivail—in the Lanquín-Cahabón corridor in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala.
Tuqtuquilal facilitates this network to support community well-being through mutually beneficial economic, social, and cultural relationships.
Rooted in deep trust, economic exchange, and co-education, Tuqtuquilal's work with these 65 Q’eqchi cacao-farming families reflects the convergence of financial, natural, social, and spiritual capital. By integrating the cultivation, procurement, processing, and sale of regeneratively grown, value-added cacao with educational spaces for personal, cultural, and ecological healing—for both its family network and international visitors—Tuqtuquilal has established an impactful, resilient, and profitable business model.
FAMILY FARMING PRACTICES
Families in the network cultivate cacao on plots of land and in the forests surrounding their homes, using traditional farming methods that include organic composting, tree pruning, replanting, and multiple cropping. Planting and harvesting often align with lunar cycles and the Mayan calendar.
The cacao production plots designed by producing families are a Q'eqchi' agroforestry food system that integrates the symbiosis of multiple plants that interrelate with each other at different levels (soil-plant-environment). A cacao plot provides multiple ecosystem services that families, animals, and the environment can benefit from.
The diversity present in the cacao plots is magical; each cacao plot has its own design and identity. The cacao plots include species such as cacao (as the main crop), madre cacao, plantain, banana, kala, cardamom, black pepper, allspice, vanilla, mahogany, cedar, copal, among other timber trees, fruit trees, and many medicinal plants.
the importance of being chemical-free
Cacao thrives in biodiverse environments, where many organisms co-grow to build resilience and richness in the soil. Some of these symbiotic companions help absorb heavy metals, protecting the cacao plant.
If farmers use pesticides or chemical sprays, as they most often do in monocultures where pests and disease are more prevalent, they kill off these vital organisms. This disrupts the natural ecosystem and allows heavy metals to enter the cacao. This is why some cacao is found to contain heavy metals—it’s a reflection of how it was grown and which relationships in the soil were harmed.
Your health is directly related to the health of the soils where your food is grown. Knowing how your cacao is grown—from seed to harvest—is essential.
Artisanal Cacao Production, Honoring the Original Ways
In a fast-food culture that prioritizes speed and efficiency above all, we do the opposite. We believe that medicinal foods should be processed slowly and intentionally, by hand, honoring the history, culture, and rhythm of the bioregion, for it to yield the highest integrity product possible.
STEP ONE: FERMENTATION
After purchasing cacao with the Red Ratzum farmers, we add the cacao or baba into wooden fermentation boxes that are lined with banana leaves. After 2 days of anaerobic fermentation, we make the first stir, adding in air and beginning the aerobic fermentation process. This is an important alchemical process where the cacao seed “dies” (it can no longer be planted to reproduce) and begins to take on a new form as medicine and nourishment.
STEP TWO: DRYING
Once the cacao is perfectly fermented, it moves to a drying house, to dry in the sun. We call it our “cacao sauna” because it gets quite hot in there! We turn the seeds over several times a day to ensure no moisture or mold is forming.
STEP THREE: TOASTING
Although many cacao companies will use industrial toasters, we go the original way, toasting the cacao seeds in small batches over a clay comal, heated by firewood. This step requires presence and precision to ensure a consistent, toasty flavor.
STEP FOUR: PEELING
Women from Red Ratzum carefully hand-peel every bean, removing broken or low-quality bits. We love hearing them chat in Q’eqchi and laugh as they work.
STEP FIVE: GRINDING AND PACKAGING
We then grind the cacao into paste, form it into molds, and then package the cacao, first with a butter paper, and then with kraft paper. Fun fact: the folds in the kraft packaging match the pleats in the Q’eqchi women’s traditional skirts!
