Bernal Díaz del Castillo (hereafter Bernie) described “great towns and temples and buildings, all made of stone, rising from the water… across a straight and level causeway,” and how the Spanish men were “astounded… and asked whether it was not a dream they were seeing”.

There were 300,000 people in Tenochtitlán on that day, six times the population of London at the time. It was the capital of the Aztec Empire, and the emperor was Moctezuma.

After a series of battles, imbroglios, and intrigues, the Spanish overthrew Moctezuma (the Aztecs were deeply unpopular with their neighbours, so most of Cortés’ work was mobilising the Mexican nations against one another, and swooping up the spoils at the end). Before that, they spent several months living in Tenochtitlán as Moctezuma’s guests.

During that time, Bernie described the experience of dining with Moctezuma. He was particularly fascinated by cacao, which Moctezuma drank in large quantities “for success with women.” Bernie describes Moctezuma’s attendants bringing him “fifty large jugs of good cacao, with its foam” each night, which the emperor drank from, before passing the jugs around. After Moctezuma had eaten, his household was served with “thousands of bowls of fowls, turkeys, venison, quails [etc etc etc]… and thousands of jugs of cacao.”

The interesting thing is that cacao did not grow in Aztec land. Instead, they fought long wars to subjugate neighbouring nations, who paid them tribute, including cacao. The cacao Moctezuma drank was probably sourced from Soconusco, a lush region in the south of Chiapas State in modern Mexico, from which we also source our Mexican Soma Cacao.

Does that mean our Mexican Soma Cacao tastes like the cacao Moctezuma drank? Yes and no. Moctezuma’s cacao was carried by porters (there were neither wheels nor draught animals in the Aztec empire) 1200km through jungles and over mountains to Tenochtitlán. It was served flavoured with flowers, vanilla, chilli, achiote, cornmeal, and occasionally honey.

Our cacao is sourced from descendants of the same cacao trees that supplied the Aztecs, but the processing and shipping is more quality-regulated these days (though God knows shipping from Mexico hasn’t gotten much easier in the last 500 years). Furthermore, Farmer Josué’s great-great-grandfather, when he bought the family farm, introduced some of the world’s rarest and best cacao from Venezuela (of the Porcelana Blanca varietal, for those interested) and interbred it with local trees. So the cacao we source from Farmer Josué is a bit of an anomaly in his region, and is actually an unusual and highly sought-after cacao in the world market (so much so that it won the Gold Award at the 2021 Cacao of Excellence Awards).

But much of cacao flavour has to do with terroir (the technical word for ‘place it grows’), fermentation (which happens in boxes made from local woods and is carried out by the local microbiome) and processing. Farmer Josué, who is pioneering modern cacao farming in his area, often sends us samples from neighbouring farms, to help us work out what we’ll do when our demand outstrips the supply his small family farm can produce. While the cacao from neighbouring farms is never quite as good as Farmer Josué’s, it’s now not far behind, and rapidly improving, and actually tastes remarkably similar to our beloved Mexican Soma Cacao. Which goes to say that, yes, our Mexican Soma Cacao probably tastes very similar to the cacao served at Moctezuma’s table.

Before we go, we should wrap up the vague allusion to cryptocurrency we made in the email header: during his travels, Bernie also noted that cacao was used as a currency in the Aztec Empire. One cacao bean bought one avocado or tomato, one turkey hen cost 30 cacao beans, and one adult human slave cost from 100 to 300 beans. Given one cacao bean yields 1-1.5g of Soma Cacao, and we sell 1kg of our Mexican cacao (about 800 beans) for $134.95, we can say that one bag of Soma Cacao would have bought 800 avocados, 27 turkey hens, and up to eight human slaves in the Aztec Empire. Which is to say, if you ever time-travel back to Tenochtitlán in the reign of Moctezuma, take your Soma Cacao with you, and you will be very rich (if you have the discipline to sell it and not drink it).

As a matter of fact, we recommend taking your Soma Cacao and a portable Soma blender whenever you travel, either in time or geography. We’re currently overseas for a sourcing trip, and while we both forgot important items of clothes and Alistair forgot his laptop, we did NOT forget our 1kg bag of Soma Cacao.

Something to mull over as you sip your steamy morning Soma.

With achiote and vanilla,

Rose, Alistair, and the team at Soma Cacao