Today I planted a very special tree that I got from Joe called Rosita de Cacao which is a fragrant flowering tree that is not botanically related to cacao. The flowers are an obscure spice used in Mesoamerican culture. In Oaxaca they make a traditional drink called tejate which involves nixtamalized white corn, roasted cacao, mamey sapote seeds, and rosita de cacao flowers ground up into a dough using a metate and thinned out with water. The ingredient is so essential that ‘a tejate is not a tejate if it does not have rosita’.
The flowers contain complex floral aromas with notes of caramel, dried and candied fruit and is called the ultimate chocolate spice!!! It apparently tastes similar to macadamia nuts. Once dried, the flowers can stay fragrant for many years which is also used to cover up the deceased. The fragrance of rosita de cacao have been found in crypts, giving the tree another name: the funeral tree and the scientific name is Quararibea funebris.
I feel good about planting this tree right now because we’ve been getting nonstop rain for the last 2 days and it seems like more wet weather is coming our way. I can’t wait to try these flowers and incorporate them into our chocolate recipes!
Originally posted on 2021-07-23, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.