— Fine cacao blended with functional mushrooms and adaptogens, here’s your cup of love and medicine!
Herbal Cacao is based in Groningen, The Netherlands.
It was founded by Sharon Fernie back in 2021 when she came back home from an extensive journey around the globe, which was punctuated by a 3 years stay in Mexico. Understanding the depths of cacao, combining it to her personal love for nutrition and surperfoods, she envisioned Herbal Cacao as a way to share love and connection.
" The combination of cacao with superfoods always made sense to her so she decided to turn what she envisioned into Herbal Cacao, a brand meant to share the knowledge and awareness she gained by exploring the use of these foods. "
N.B.: This is a remunerated partnership between Herbal Cacao and Cacao Insights. We’re committed to keeping our objectivity & independence and only showcase brands and cacaos that match our standards & ethos.
This article contains an affiliate link and a 10% discount code — CACAOINSIGHTS — available on a first purchase.
An early start
Leaving her home country early on, Sharon spent a big part of her life abroad, getting from one corner of the world to the other. On the way, she developed a deep interest for superfoods and nutrition, but it was only when her path took her to spend 3 full years in Mexico that she discovered cacao.
She broadened her perspective that was at the time made of the common narrative surrounding chocolate as an industrial treat and understood that cacao was once revered and cherished for its singular way of being nourishing on many layers.
She felt called to share with the world what she could grasp from this Mayan heritage, and to let everyone know that cacao might be one of the best ways to learn again how to connect with ourselves, with others, with nature.
Coming home
After another handful of adventures, she faced a pivotal moment when she understood it was time for her to go back home and to step into what started to feel like a mission.
The combination of cacao with superfoods always made sense to her so she decided to turn what she envisioned into Herbal Cacao, a brand meant to share the knowledge and awareness she gained by exploring the use of these foods.
The fire was well alive and she was crushing every step of a young brand’s development while handling each and every operation, from production to sale, on her own.
Challenging times
Substantial setbacks came up on her road in the beginning of 2022. Far from stopping her to put her vision to fruition, with hindsight it helped her pushing it even further than she could’ve imagined. By the end of 2022, her operation was fully up and running with production taken care of through a social working place, and she was surrounded with a proper team that she likes to call the Herbal Cacao Family, handling the brand’s coordination.
Diversity through singularities
Cacao could be described as the merging of a highly nutritious food and an open door to one’s spirituality, making it a proper plant medicine. Sharon knew it was also a good vessel for one’s body to absorb any added nutrient and saw its catalysts properties as something to rely on. As it made perfect sense to her, she decided from the start to enhance this already potent food with the abnormally powerful adaptogens she was fond of, therefore offering a range of proper medicinal blends.
Adaptogenic mushrooms and plants are the other active compounds found in Herbal Cacao’s blends. More specifically, at the time when I’m writing this article: Chaga, Lion’s Mane and Mucuna.
Adaptogens do what they say: they adapt to one’s body, “scanning” its actual processing state to actually balance physiological processes where needed.
They all play a different role when it comes to support our vital system according to their composition and in this regard were all affected their own recipe. Three blends purposefully designed, as well as two plain options compose Herbal Cacao’s range. A diversity made of singularities on which one can rely, depending on what’s needed or wanted.
We can already feel the role cacao plays in the brand’s vision, a solid common basis where other ingredients add up to enrich the finality. A perspective that we’ll dive into in more details in the next articles of this series.
What's next
A truly inspiring encounter, that’s how we’d describe our connection with Sharon.
Following her heart and guts only, she successfully assemble each piece of the Herbal Cacao puzzle, gifting us not only with high quality cacao blends, but also with a sense of helping her accomplishing her mission. All in all a meaningful way of sharing way more than a delicious cup of cacao.
We’ll dive into Herbal Cacao’s range, first by profiling their ‘Natural Belize’, then by focusing on the differences in effects we could experience using their ‘Immune Support’ and ‘Pasiòn’ blends, which are made of the same cacao.
Last but not least, we’ll share our interview with Sharon, where we take a deep dive into her personal story, learn how she came up with the blends and develop many more interesting topics.
If you’d like to experiment with Herbal Cacao’s blends, enjoy 10% off your first order with our code : CACAOINSIGHTS.
And as a final word, an abstract of Herbal cacao mission, in Sharon’s own terms :
« It has become my mission to share my knowledge and to let the world experience the powerful effects of these sacred plants by combining the nutritional and spiritual world. To support you on conscious healthy lifestyle and on your path of self and spiritual discovery. Bringing together the ancient wisdom of the indigenous tribes and our modern Western world.»
Read more about Herbal Cacao
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