Divine Organics Raw Cacao Powder/Raw Cocoa Powder - Certified Organic - Premium Rio Arriba - Smoothies, Hot Chocolate, Baking, Shakes, Add to Coffee - Rich in Magnesium (16oz)

I've been using Divine Organics raw cocao for about a year now and I really enjoy the product. I"m in the health and wellness industry and it took a long while to find a cocao that contained ample nutrients, and is a cocao I enjoy and can afford. It's rich, velvety flavor and texture is complemented by a gentle bitterness. I've been using this product medicinally for its magnesium and iron contents and my body responds favorably to it. When I'm on my cycle, I can become quite anemic. Although cocao contains non-heme iron (meaning, it isn't absorbed as well by the body as animal-based heme iron), I find that eating the cocao with a small tangerine or another citrus (vitamin c helps with absorption) increases bioavailability to the point where I can feel a significant difference. My energy jumps within 30 minutes yet I don't get the jitters like I have with other cocaos. I have recommended some of my yoga and Reiki clients try this cocao for the health benefits as well. Of course, I would be remiss to mention that this cocao makes an absolutely heavenly hot cocoa! Made with raw milk, brown sugar or honey, heated slowly in a pan while whisking, I've never had a better hot cocoa. I also thoroughly enjoy making smoothies with this cocao and baking with it. I've used this cocao in recipes I've created for my retreats (such as the avocado cocao pudding with blueberries shown in this picture) and they are always met with oohs and ahhhs. I also like how easy it was to look up information on this company and product so I could make an informed purchasing decision.

When I cannot source sacred cacao from my favorite person who gets it directly from their connections in Peru and Colombia- this is my go to. I use it for multiple recipes but mostly to drink and this one is amazing with flavor and freshness and I will continue to choose Divine Organics brand.

It’s smells amazing. It tastes amazing. Use it sparingly, pretty pricey.

I love this cacao! I only have to use 1 teaspoon at a time to get the same energizing effect as other brands' 1 tablespoon.

Good, clean product, ground to a fine powder. Rich chocolate taste, easy to use and low price, too! Absorbs easily into smoothies. My favorite way to use this cacao powder is in chocolate chia pudding: 2 cups of soy or almond milk / 2 heaping tablespoons chia seeds / 2 tablespoons cacao powder / honey or stevia to taste--mix until blended. (Do not blend in a blender or you get lots of air bubbles and pudding turns out sort of gooey.) Let mixture sit in fridge overnight. Resulting pudding is thick, creamy and really delicious. This is also great buzzed in a blender with vanilla soy milk to make healthy chocolate milk.

CA PROP 65 WARNING ON PRODUCT LABEL, WHICH IS DIFFERENT THAN THE LABEL IN THE PHOTOS. The warning is added below the “Allergen Information” on the bag I received. I added photos of the way it’s advertised in Amazon vs. what I received. The cocoa itself is a little lighter and less flavorful than the Now Real Foods Organic Cocoa and the Sharfenberger. It’s good though; to the average person this is fine. I’m just not willing to knowingly put cancer-causing chemicals in my body while I work so hard in my life to keep them out. I didn’t even bother with contacting Amazon after I saw it’s not returnable. I stead, I paid for a subscription to Thrive Market and I’m done playing the game Amazon seems to be playing: allow false advertising and refuse to support the customer victims all while Jeff Bezos rolls around in even more of our dollars while paying ZERO federal taxes and getting a rebate in top of it. I am exiting this game of trying to buy healthy food on Amazon because it’s rigged.

I like that I can use minimal sweetener, because this cacao powder is not bitter. It has a rich chocolate flavor, with no odd taste. It's 100% cacao, no artificial sweeteners. It dissolves really easily in hot liquid, and dissolves reasonably well in warm liquid. It works great in smoothies, too. I love to make iced coffee with it - I just dissolve the cacao in a couple of tablespoons of hot water, then add it to the coffee, and add ice. I generally add just a little sweetener, maybe 2 teaspoons sugar in a tall (32 oz) glass.

I have mixed feelings about this product. First the good points. For a raw cacao powder, this tastes pretty smooth. Nice mild fruity notes, easy blending and rich-tasting. I was happy to find such a large bag at a reasonable price of organic powder. However, when I got the bag, I noticed there was a California Prop 65 warning sticker, which I had to research to find out more about. While I understand that traces of cadmium and lead are naturally occurring in many chocolate sources, and that California has stricter limits on these things than most other places, I feel this company could be more up-front about this, perhaps disclosing what levels of these substances are compared to other sources. But the main issue I have with the product is that if you look at the images displayed of the product, it clearly displays the Fair Trade symbol on the back of the package, between the organic and kosher symbols. The bag of cacao that I received has no fair trade marking on it anywhere. It is true that there is no mention of the product being fair trade. However, I was looking for a fair trade product--that is extremely important to me--and based on the images I decided to try the product. If I had known it was not fair trade, I would not have ordered it. I feel the images are misleading, and knowing how important fair trade is to many consumers of cacao, I have to wonder if this is intentional. The images should be removed, or there should be a disclaimer about the fair trade symbol. I researched this company more vigorously after buying, and I don't feel comfortable with the limited information I found. I feel that the product is of reasonable quality, but I won't be purchasing it again.