A young man asks the question as he approaches my booth.
I pause and take a breath.
He is asking about Deep Dark Drinking Chocolate, but what he doesn’t know is that he just challenged me with a loaded question, one that I dread because it will awaken the “Nerdy Beast.”
Nerdy Beast is the part of my brain that I have tried to tame for social reasons. She loves to explore how words change meaning depending on who's using them and can drag unwilling participants down tangential rabbit holes. I fear she will turn this innocent question into a 20-minute lecture that nobody asked for.
So I have to tread carefully. I could easily scare the young man away if I give in to what Nerdy Beast wants.
When he asked, “is this cacao?” what exactly did he mean?
Was he referring to ceremonial cacao—the minimally processed chocolate inspired by traditional Mesoamerican drinks?
Is he wondering about chocolate teas made with cocoa bean husks or beverages labeled 100% cacao that can be brewed like coffee?
Or is he simply asking whether drinking chocolate is healthy because he has heard cacao is a superfood?
See? Nerdy Beast is already stretching.
The real problem is that the word cacao has become wonderfully fuzzy. Depending on who's using it, cacao might refer to the tree, the pod, the beans before roasting, the beans after roasting, minimally processed chocolate, ceremonial chocolate, or simply something that sounds healthier than cocoa.
Because historically, cocoa and cacao have referred to the same plant. Somewhere along the way, marketers—and all of us—started assigning different meanings to the two words. Today you'll often hear people use them interchangeably, while others insist they're completely different.
This, naturally, leads Nerdy Beast to an even deeper rabbit hole.
What exactly is "100% cacao"?
Does that mean 100% of the cacao tree? The pod? The bean? The nib? The cocoa butter? Or does it have to do with process? Does it mean the bean before fermentation? After roasting? Before the cocoa butter is removed? After it's ground? Before it's dutched? It's surprisingly difficult to define once you start you start down the path.
This is usually the point where my eye begins to twitch.
Fortunately, I remember something important.
The young man probably wasn't asking for a dissertation on chocolate terminology. He was simply curious. How nice of him.
So instead of unleashing Nerdy Beast, I smile, hand him a sample, and say, "If you're into dark chocolate, I think you'll love this."
He takes a cautious sip.
Then another.
"Wow," he says. "I've never had anything like this."
I breathe out. That's really all he wanted to know.
Then I thank him
...while quietly wrestling Nerdy Beast to the ground before she blurts out, "Interestingly, Theobroma cacao literally means 'food of the gods,' "
Just so you know, Nerdy Beast eventually got her way. She insisted on making a chocolate glossary, which you can download below if you'd like to wander down the rabbit hole with her.
