Three Guatemalan Cacao Origins: Entre Nubes, Caoba and Cahabón
One of the easiest mistakes with cacao is treating ‘Guatemalan cacao’ as if it were one single thing. It is not.
At Mother Earth we currently work with three Guatemalan origins: Entre Nubes, Caoba and Cahabón. They come from different places and relationships, so we keep them as separate products rather than flattening them into one generic story.
Entre Nubes, Alta Verapaz
Entre Nubes connects with farming cooperatives in Alta Verapaz. It is a good place to start if you want a Guatemalan cacao with a clear regional story and a direct sense of place.
Caoba
Caoba carries a different community story, connected with Mayan mothers preparing cacao in Guatemala. That human side matters to us because cacao should not arrive on a shelf with the people behind it edited out.
The women in our Guatemala sourcing story
I would much rather show some of the people involved than talk about a “beautiful origin” without showing any human side of it. These photographs already feature in our Mother Earth Guatemalan cacao product gallery. They relate to our own sourcing story, not to Keith’s Cacao.
Cahabón
Cahabón connects with Q’eqchi’ community food-sovereignty work in Alta Verapaz. The cacao itself has a rich character with fruity notes and gentle bitterness in the current batches we have worked with.
Where does Keith’s Cacao fit?
Keith’s Cacao is another Guatemalan cacao people ask us for, but it is its own established brand, not one of the three Mother Earth origins above. I met Keith around San Marcos La Laguna years ago and wrote a little about that, and why we still stock the brand, in my Keith’s Cacao story. The photographs above are from our Mother Earth sourcing material, not Keith’s production.
Which Guatemalan cacao is best?
There is no useful answer to that. They are different origins, not a good-better-best ladder.
If flavour is your main reason for choosing, read the current product page because cacao changes naturally from batch to batch. If the source story matters most, choose the origin you feel drawn to learning more about. If you are buying for a circle, café or regular home use, availability and format may matter just as much.
Cacao without the generic story
For some customers cacao is part of ceremony or reflection. For others it is a morning drink, a café ingredient or something they simply enjoy. We make room for all of that, but the origin comes first.
Entre Nubes, Caoba and Cahabón deserve their own names because the people and places behind them are not interchangeable.
You can compare these with Venezuela, Ecuador and India in the main Mother Earth Ceremonial Cacao collection.
If you are deciding how much to order, read our guide to cacao pack sizes. And for people preparing cacao for groups, here is a practical way to work out how much cacao to bring.
If you'd like a handy place to start, our free 14-page cacao beginner's guide brings together a first-cup recipe, cacao origins and practical questions. You can download it and keep it for later.
