It was 2020, and like a lot of people I was stuck. Not just in the way the whole world was. I couldn't find a place to stay so I ended up back at my parents'. Everything outside had gone still. Everything inside felt the same way.
I was following an artist online who kept talking about cacao. Drinking it. The way it made her feel. Why she swore by it. I wasn't looking for anything really. I was just tired and stuck and a little depressed, the way a lot of us were that year. I was curious enough to actually try it so I ordered some from the US.
The first time I drank it something happened that I wasn't expecting at all. It wasn't subtle. I felt connected to myself in a way I hadn't in a long time. Like something in me came alive again. Every cup brought something different. I kept drinking it every morning after that and it helped me actually process what I was feeling instead of just getting through the day. It felt like coming home to myself.
Most of my days that year were spent drawing and painting. Cacao became part of that too. I'd sit down with a cup before I picked up a pencil, and getting into a creative flow came so much easier.
Then the practical problem showed up: customs costs, shipping from the US that took over a month. So I started looking for other options. I ended up trying more than 25 different cacaos from all over the world. Most were available in Europe. Some I found while traveling. None of it did what that first cup did.
I finally found an importer who could source cacao from small sustainable farms grown the traditional way, passed down through generations of Peruvian farmers, hand-harvested and sun-dried rather than rushed through processing. When it arrived it gave me that same feeling. The one from 2020. I had far more than I needed for myself and I kept thinking about how hard it had been to find something like this in Europe at all. If it had been this hard for me it was probably hard for other people too. So I started selling it. But I wanted people here to be able to find it too. If you're in Europe, this is for you.
That's really how Lunaversa began. If you're holding a cup of this cacao right now you're holding the same thing that got me through one of the hardest years I've had. I hope it does for you even a small part of what it did for me.
