Walking barefoot across the cool tile floor, her silver face gems twinkling in the sunlight, sound bath practitioner and energy healer Maya Andreeva distributed paper cups filled with brown liquid to the 20 mostly youngish adults seated on yoga mats and blankets on the ground.

They had gathered this Saturday morning on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in the courtyard behind the Japanese skincare store Albion Garden to attend Echoes of the Heart, a two-hour cacao, breathwork and sound bath workshop that promised to guide participants toward “deep self-exploration, energetic healing and profound relaxation.”

“Just allow yourself to feel the intention within you,” said Greta Ruljevaite, founder of the wellness brand Xpansion who co-led the workshop with Andreeva. “Speak it into the cacao, your intention, your wisdom, what you choose to let go of. Anything and everything: Speak it into the cacao.”

Around the room, participants gazed reverently into their paper cups, some of them mouthing words silently.

“Now bring it up to your heartspace, connecting to your heart,” she continued, as ambient music droned in the background. “Bring it down to the earth for grounding, and then back to your heartspace. … One more inhale together … and drink your cacao.”

With great gravity, they drank.

Over the next two hours the group was first led by Ruljevaite through a breathwork series, and then a sound healing session facilitated by Andreeva. The cacao part of the workshop may have been minimal, but afterward, attendee Saim Alam said the warm, slightly bitter beverage deepened his experience of the event.

“I was genuinely in such a state of bliss the whole time,” he said.

Cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate, has been showing up at an increasing number of wellness events in the L.A. area in recent years. In March alone, Angelenos can attend a Women’s Circle and Cacao Ceremony in Hollywood, a Women’s Day Goddess Circle and Cacao Ceremony at the Grove, a New Moon Cacao Renewal Ceremony at Yoga NoHo Center and the Somos Cacao Ceremony at an undisclosed location in Woodland Hills.

Small edible flowers float on the surface of a cup of cacao at a recent cacao, breathwork and sound healing workshop in Venice.

(Deborah Netburn / Los Angeles Times)

If you want to make the drink yourself, Holy Cacao sells Ecuadorean cacao at farmers markets in Hollywood, Mar Vista, Malibu and Marina del Rey. Local farmers market vendor Arcana Apothecary sells a $60, one-pound block of cacao that is made entirely by women in Guatemala, and pure organic cacao powder is available at Erewhon.

“People hosting cacao experiences continues to grow,” said Nick Meador, who sells ceremonial-grade cacao (an unofficial designation that suggests minimal processing) online through Soul Lift Cacao, the company he founded in 2018. “People want something that gives them a sense of embodied spirituality and cacao is so gentle, you can’t even say there are side effects.”

Practitioners claim that consuming cacao opens the heart, helping drinkers feel more compassionate, blissful, energized and loving. And because it does not have psychedelic properties like other substances labeled “plant medicines,” it is a safe and easy way to experiment with consciousness-altering natural compounds. Consider it ayahuasca lite.

“It’s not like any drug I’ve ever taken,” said Kat Ho, who started leading cacao ceremonies in 2021 after being introduced to the drink during the pandemic by an influencer on YouTube. “It’s so mild. Your mind feels a little more loose and you feel a little more clear in the things you want to do.”

When folklorist Taylor Burby was researching cacao ceremonies for her recent graduate thesis, she found that more than 89% of the 118 participants she interviewed said they like to consume cacao because it is a legal, more accessible plant medicine.

Attendees of a cacao, breathwork and sound healing workshop hold cups of cacao at their heart center.

(Jean Marc Bertolet)

“If you take mushrooms you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Burby said. “With cacao you might feel yourself getting warmer or giddy or peaceful, but you have more control over your experience.”

The physical effects of cacao have not been studied as much as coffee, but research suggests that chemical compounds present in cacao can affect mood by increasing both alertness and cognition, and also improve cardiovascular health by lowering blood pressure. And because cacao has much less caffeine than coffee, fans say it gives them an energetic boost without making them jumpy.

“I can feel my shoulders drop, my chest opens,” Andreeva said. “I have felt the energy running through my body like little tingles in spaces where I don’t usually feel that.”

Making ceremonial cacao is a multistep process that traditionally begins with fermenting the seeds of the cacao fruit in their own pulp, drying them in the sun, roasting them over an open fire and then grinding them until they form a paste, which gets poured into a mold to harden.

To prepare the cacao for the Echoes of the Heart workshop, Ruljevaite used a ball of cacao that she had purchased on a recent trip to Guatemala. The night before she meditated over the dark brown sphere, filling it with intentions, and then shaved it into small pieces; mixed it with warm water, oat milk, a little manuka honey and vanilla; and then frothed it. She brought it to the event in an electric Crock-Pot. Just before serving, she and Andreeva whistled over it for a few moments, infusing it with “light language” to give it more potency. Then they ladled the liquid into small cups.

In South and Central America cacao is often served mixed just with water, but without any sweeteners it’s very bitter.

“Our Western tastebuds are not really ready for the traditional experience of cacao,” Andreeva said. “Anywhere I’ve gone in L.A. to drink cacao, it’s never just been raw.”

Archaeological evidence suggests that cacao has been cultivated in Mesoamerica for at least 5,000 years. It was served at betrothals and other celebrations and was a favorite drink of Maya and Aztec nobility, especially in places where it had to be imported, said Rosemary Joyce, a recently retired professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley and an expert on the history of cacao. Texts from the 16th century show the plant was used by Indigenous people medicinally to treat an array of ailments and cacao was consumed in rituals and ceremonies, mostly to repair relationships between the human and spirit worlds, she said.

Joyce has been offered traditional cacao while doing fieldwork in Honduras.

Maya Andreeva, a sound bath practitioner and yoga teacher, ladles cacao from a pot into a paper cup.

(Deborah Netburn / Los Angeles Times)

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“It tastes like medicine — there’s no way around it,” she said.

Despite its storied history, her research suggests that ancient uses of cacao in Mesoamerica bear little resemblance to the rituals many Westerners are crafting today.

“It’s a tricky area,” she said. “The ceremonies they did required cacao, but the purpose of the ceremony was not to commune with the spirit of cacao or have it come down and take over your body. That’s a very Western notion.”

Most modern-day cacao ceremonies trace their origin to Keith Wilson, a geologist, adventurer and founder of Keith’s Cacao, who became known as the “Chocolate Shaman.” Wilson, who died last year at his home in Guatemala, claims he was contacted by the cacao spirit in 2003 and given the mission of reintroducing ceremonial cacao to a world that had mostly forgotten about it. He began serving cacao to visitors on his porch, and friends started calling them “cacao ceremonies.” Over time, the area around Lake Atitlán where he settled became known for its cacao ceremonies. Visitors brought the practice back to their home countries.

Meador prefers to label his cacao events “cacao experiences” or “modern cacao ceremonies” to make it clear they are not derived from ancient Indigenous rituals.

“I don’t want to be like a policeman,” he said, “but I teach people to be careful with the words we choose. There are many voices in the conversation and there are people in the U.S. who don’t really actually know that much about it.”

Today in L.A., cacao ceremonies are often paired with other healing modalities such as breathwork, yoga, meditation and dance. Some facilitators will evoke the spirit of cacao, who is supposed to be loving, nurturing and even a bit promiscuous. Burby, the folklorist, once heard it described as “the grandmother that still has sex, rather than the grandma who is over and done and retired.” A facilitator might remind attendees that cacao is a heart opener, that after drinking it one might feel warm, clear and more alert. But after that, anything goes.

“There are just as many ways to practice as people practicing,” Burby said.

Back at Echoes of the Heart, Andreeva and Ruljevaite make it clear they are far from cacao experts. But they had both had positive experiences with the drink and wanted to share it with those who attended their workshop.

“I see it as this beautiful welcoming bridge back to yourself,” Ruljevaite said. “And with a lot of prayers and intention infused in it, and the power and reverence of the community, it heightens and amplifies its benefits.”