Dear Somatites, It will not surprise you at all to learn that Alistair and I buy organic spinach. We have read enough studies about the effects of synthetic pesticides on the human body to do...

  Dear Somapals, Some of you will have seen this week’s Four Corners report about cacao farming in Ghana (if you haven’t, you can watch it here). Many of you have emailed us about it,...

Dear Somamatics, In November 1519, Hernán Cortés, accompanied by 500 Spanish soldiers, fifteen horses, fifteen cannon, and five thousand indigenous allies, passed between the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, and beheld the city of Tenochtitlán. Bernal...

Beloved Somalovers,   Alistair is an unusual person, and spent an unusual gap year backpacking through Central and South America. Half-way through his gap year, he reached the Darién Gap, and had to work out...

Dear Somarafters,   Those of you who watch the news will probably have heard about the rain we’re having in Fat North Queensland. Depending on what news source you subscribe to, you will have interpreted...

Dear Somatines,   Valentine’s Day is here: that strange hodgepodge of Hollywood, chocolate, Portishead and dinner plans that seems to be cool one year, and deeply uncool the next.   Valentine’s Day is the world’s...

Dear Somastars,   The days are getting warmer, and life is hotting up at Soma. All five of our cacao origins are fully stocked - it feels like having all our children home for Christmas....

Humans started consuming and cultivating cacao 5300 years ago. Migration and commerce spread cacao through Central and Tropical South America, and into the Caribbean. From 1500, European influence carried cacao to tropical areas around the...

The Ancient Roots of Cacao Cacao has been used for millenia in ceremonies by the indigenous people of Mesoamerica. These peoples have cultivated a close bond with the cacao plant, and weaved it like a...