Peru · Chinim Wawas · Ceremonial cacao

For a pure cacao drink, allow 20–30 g per cup, or 30–40 g for a denser texture. With a chocolate bar, adjust the amount to your taste: it already contains sugar.
Grate or break up the cacao or chocolate.
Heat the water, or a plant-based drink, without bringing it to the boil: 60 to 65 °C at most.
Pour over the pieces, let them melt, then beat with a whisk or a molinillo until you get an even foam.

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Valeurs moyennes pour 100 g
Énergie	2479 kJ / 600 kcal
Matières grasses	50,3 g
dont acides gras saturés	30,1 g
Glucides	30,6 g
dont sucres	0,3 g
Fibres alimentaires	14,7 g
Protéines	13,5 g
Sel	< 0,013 g

Valeurs moyennes pour 100 g

Énergie

2479 kJ / 600 kcal

Matières grasses

50,3 g

dont acides gras saturés

30,1 g

Glucides

30,6 g

dont sucres

0,3 g

Fibres alimentaires

14,7 g

Protéines

13,5 g

Sel

< 0,013 g

The terroir

Imaza, on the banks of the Marañón, at around 500 m. The Awajún women of Chinim and Wawas tend isolated plots there, away from the accessible areas where industrial clones dominate. Their cacao is fruity and floral, with citrus and plum.

Country Peru

Harvest May and June

Altitude about 500 m

Fermentation 8 days

Drying 15 days on raised beds

Roasting Lightly roasted

500 metres up the upper Marañón, where the lorry cannot go

In Imaza, in the province of Bagua, the plots of Chinim and Wawas sit at around five hundred metres, far from the tracks. The Marañón runs through this part of Amazonas. Nahù puts it plainly: the industrial clones, CCN 51, remain concentrated in the more accessible areas. Here, they have not arrived. And that is no small thing, in this corner of the world: the oldest traces of cacao use in the Americas are not in Mesoamerica, they are in the upper Amazon, at Santa Ana-La Florida, in south-eastern Ecuador, some five thousand three hundred years ago. Starch, theobromine and ancient DNA, on potsherds.

White-bean criollo, on three to five species

The cacao is a Criollo. Nahù places it among the white-bean cacaos, known for their aromatic potential. In the cup: a fruity acidity, nuts leaning towards hazelnut, white flowers, a burst of citrus and plum. Nahù describes the plot as it is: three to five tree species, more than half of them exotic, a single layer. It is not a forest, it is an orchard. What is rare here is not the shade, it is the tree.

Nos fèves sont sourcées par Nahù.

The garden is called aja, and it belongs to the women

Among the Awajún, the garden is called aja. The women are responsible for it, just as they carry the work of pottery. In their stories, Nugkui, the spirit of the earth, taught them to make plants grow; songs accompany each task, from preparing the garden to the harvest.

The patterns on the pots come from plants, animals, mountains and stars. In Chinim and Wawas, the women also tend the cacao plots: the same hand for the fruit, the cassava and the clay.

Ce film n'est pas le nôtre. La Direction du patrimoine immatériel du ministère de la Culture du Pérou l'a consacré à la poterie awajún, inscrite en 2021. Les dukúg, les femmes âgées, transmettent le geste aux autres femmes de la famille.

Eight days of fermentation, fifteen days of drying

In May and June, the pods are harvested by hand. The fresh cacao goes to the Asociación de Productores Agrarios Cacao Nuestro, which gathers the harvests, ferments and dries.

The beans are fermented for eight days, reaching a fermentation rate of eighty-eight per cent, then dried for fifteen days on raised beds.

Chinim et Wawas, au bord du Marañón

Le Marañón passe au pied de la berge. Une cinquantaine de personnes s'y tiennent, adultes et enfants, les deux communautés ensemble. Quelques-uns ont les pieds dans l'eau.

Cent cinquante personnes vivent ici. L'apu Etelvina Awanash dirige la communauté. Les femmes tiennent les parcelles. Un lot par an part d'ici.

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The terroir