connecting with the senses

Chocolate is at the heart of what we do. But what’s the connection with mindfulness?

When our founder Meredith started her journey into meditation and mindfulness she was struck by the natural connection with the sensory approach of chocolate tasting and mindfulness. Many tastings and many chocolates later, she started to combine the two things both in her personal and professional life.

Tasting chocolate professionally (yes this is a thing!) involves using all of the senses in a very focussed way. It includes taking in the look, feel, sound, smell and taste of chocolate. In fact, it’s very similar to the very ancient Buddhist tradition of a mindful eating meditation.

Chocolate tasting also brings to life how mindfulness can be incorporated in everyday life. The formal practices and meditations of mindfulness are of course important, but mindfulness is ultimately also about how elements of awareness, connection and compassion can be incorporated into everyday living.

And what better way to experience this than through chocolate?

Chocolate is the perfect ingredient for exploring mindful eating as it’s one of the most complex foods we can taste when it comes to flavour.

There are well over 400 potential flavour compounds (some say closer to 600) that you could detect across chocolate types; it’s even more complex than wine! And it’s the dark stuff that has the most flavour complexity, which is why we mostly use dark chocolate in our blends.

From green grasses to smoky peat or fruity berries, there are so many different flavours you might detect across different chocolates. And it’s lots of fun exploring what you taste.

Not only this, but good chocolate is an incredibly uplifting ingredient and warming it up into hot chocolate helps hit all the sensory bliss buttons. Hot chocolate is also a nod to the sacred South American origins of chocolate as a drink. So give yourself the time to sip and savour…

beyond tasting

A lesser known element of mindful eating goes beyond the personal sensory experience of taste.

Mindful eating is also about our wider connection with where food comes from and the people that nurture, grow and make it. And this is particularly important for a food like chocolate, which is often devalued in the way it’s traded.

Growing cacao is a strenuous and often challenging crop. Many of us consuming chocolate are a long way from where it’s normally grown so there can be a disconnection with this source.

There are in fact many, many hands involved in creating chocolate, from the cacao farmers to the chocolate makers...

Cacao pods are normally cut by hand from the trees and then cut open to extract the seeds that become cocoa beans. The beans are fermented in piles, turned regularly, and then dried.

When the beans arrive at the chocolate maker to be ground into chocolate, the beans often need to be hand sorted to extract any not-so-great beans and grit or dirt that comes in the bags of beans (though we’re talking here about the smaller chocolate makers rather than the big confectionery manufacturers).

If the chocolate is then used by chocolatiers, pastry chefs or confectioners, that’s at least one more pair of hands involved.

When you’re sipping your Calm Cocoa, you therefore might also like to give a little thanks to all these hands while you warm your own hands on your mug.