Agua de Cacao

Julianna and I had our first cups in March 2020. The rest is history.

A couple of blocks from my home, there is a cacao shop.

It is wide open to the street with a sweet tiny little garden in the back. A couple of tables, too. Lots of plants.

When you decide to glide into the shop - I don't think your left brain is part of this decision - you get immediately enveloped by the smell. It reminds me of my bakery, but with an edge. Because roasting cacao has some little edges that bread-baking, in its full roundness, doesn't. 

Every time I walk in, I get a feeling similar to falling in love.

Today, I asked the girl behind the counter if she could still smell it. "Just for the first ten minutes after I get here," she tells me. Yes, the bakery was like that, too.

You can pleasure yourself (it's the direct translation of the French "se faire plaisir," and I know it's weird in English - but there is no other sentence for me to use in this case) with a cup of dark hot chocolate, or maybe a truffle or three, or something frozen, or maybe even a jar of cacao infused body cream.

And while you wait, you can munch on freshly roasted cacao bean from the small basket on the counter.

But for me, ever since I had my first sip a year ago, it's always the same: Agua de Cacao.

Crispy cold, not very sweet, intensely chocolate-y with a whisper of cinnamon. A gritty sludge at the bottom that lets you know that this is the real deal. 

I bet that's what we drink in heaven.