Craving Cacao: Mexico sees renewed reverence for 'food of the gods'

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02:44

Mexicans, like most people around the world, love their chocolate. But they feel plenty of pride as well since their ancestors discovered it. As CGTN's Alasdair Baverstock reports, the country is seeing a renewed reverence for chocolate.

Consumed across the globe, chocolate is among Mexico's great gifts to the world. Known to the Aztecs as "Xocolatl" - the "Food of the Gods" - today the Mesoamerican invention has become a global industry worth over 92 billion dollars a year. But a culinary movement Mexico is beginning to take a greater interest in cacao, the basis of all chocolate.

MARIA GORDOA CASA FLORECER "Cacao has been used since the civilizations of Mesoamerica, we're talking about almost three-thousand years. It has very specific qualities, for the nutrition, for the healing and the rituals associated with it that have been celebrated since ancient times until today."

It's a movement that is seeing Mexicans reconnect with their ancestors through ancient ceremonies that use cacao in the same way as Aztec emperors of old.

TANIA URIBE CACAO CEREMONY PARTICIPANT "What I felt since my first time was an enormous opening in my heart. Like you know when you get the feeling of when you have done something amazing, like climbing a mountain, like when you feel very happy about what you have achieved, and you can feel it throughout your body. That's what it feels like."

The heightened interest has seen food businesses throughout the country expand their menus to incorporate cacao's versatility. And restauranteurs from across the capital regularly visit one of the city's most famous markets to source their beans.

But the greater demand is in part due to a greater supply, one that the sellers here say is grounded in the simple economics of the states where cacao originates.

CLAUDIA PALMA MERCADO MEDELLION STORE OWNER "Now that the petrol industry is coming to an end for the people of Tabasco, which is where the cacao comes from, many have been left without work. So many are taking up the traditional work again, and Mexico City is bringing many of them to sell their products."

As the movement for real chocolate grows, its benefits appear to be equally wide-reaching.

ALASDAIR BAVERSTOCK MEXICO CITY "As Mexicans take more interest in their cultural roots, chocolate is taking center stage as one of their ancestors' greatest contributions to world heritage. It's a movement that not only inspires national pride, but benefits the country's poorest farming communities as well. Alasdair Baverstock, CGTN, Mexico City."