The Herbal Chocolatier: Cacao, Medicine & Ritual
Cacao has always lived at the intersection of food, medicine, and ritual.
In this class, we explore cacao not only as an ingredient for chocolate making, but as a plant ally that supports presence, pleasure, grounding, and connection. You’ll learn how to work with cacao in ways that are both nourishing and functional—creating herbal chocolates and sweet preparations that help integrate other plant medicines into daily life with more ease and consistency.
Rather than treating chocolate as something separate from herbal practice, we approach it as a bridge: a way to bring herbs into the body through something familiar, enjoyable, and emotionally supportive. You’ll learn how to think through flavour, energetics, and plant pairing so that your creations feel both intentional and alive.
Alongside hands-on formulation, we explore how simple food practices can become ritual—small, repeatable acts that shift the way we relate to nourishment, the nervous system, and the everyday experience of taking medicine.
Together we explore:
How to work with cacao as a plant ally for grounding, connection, and heart-centered presence
The foundations of herbal chocolate making and functional sweet formulation
How to integrate herbs into chocolate in ways that are supportive, balanced, and enjoyable
Matching flavours, energetics, and plant actions for effective herbal blends
How cacao can support consistency in taking herbs and other preparations
Food as ritual: turning everyday nourishment into a simple practice of care and presence
Ways to use chocolate as a bridge between medicine, pleasure, and daily life
Through cacao, we return to a simple truth: medicine does not have to be separate from joy.
The Herbal Chocolatier: Cacao, Medicine & Ritual With Maria | May 15
In this class, we explore cacao and chocolate making as both a nourishing craft and a joyful, embodied ritual. You’ll learn how to work with cacao as a plant ally to create simple herbal chocolates and sweet treats that are both delicious and functional—supporting consistency and ease when taking other herbs, tinctures, or medicines that might otherwise feel challenging to integrate into daily life.
We’ll look at cacao not only as an ingredient, but as a heart-opening medicine that supports connection, presence, pleasure, and grounding. You’ll be guided through ways of blending herbs into chocolate in supportive, intentional ways, while also understanding how to match flavours, effects, and energetics of different plants.
Alongside practical chocolate-making skills, we’ll explore how food can become ritual—an accessible way to bring more joy, care, and meaning into everyday wellness practices. This class invites you to deepen your relationship with cacao as a daily ally for both nourishment and medicine, and to discover how sweetness itself can support healing and consistency.
Teacher Bio:
Maria is a herbal enthusiast, facilitator, and somatic practitioner originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, now based at Lake Atitlán, Guatemala. Her work weaves plant medicine—especially everyday herbs and cacao—with embodiment and ritual to create grounded, trauma-informed spaces for healing and transformation. She supports people in reconnecting with the wisdom of plants, their bodies, and their innate capacity to heal.
