Let me tell you a story. Imagine waking up at 5 am every day with the rest of your family. Each day is one of hard labor at the field. The rest of the world doesn’t matter, it’s just your family, your community and yourself.

You only eat what you grow. This may sound modest but your family grow a great diversity of traditional crops. They have been growing cacao, tomatillo, chili, vanilla, corn, allspice, cinnamon, breadnut, annatto, among other crops, for generations. All your produce grows under the canopy of cedar and other forest trees of the rainforest of Tabasco.

How do you get the energy to do all that?

It’s easy, you just need to mix day and night with a little water and drink it. This little secret has been known for 4,000 years since the time of the old Olmec civilization and your Tzotzil family in the Zoque Rainforest have been doing it for generations.

Cacao beans are traditionally grown in the shade, thus representing the night and the underworld. Maize, grown in the light, represents the day. With a gentle roast of the cacao beans, you can mix them with maize and grind them together. Afterwards, you just need to add a little water and stir the drink until it gets frothy. The end result: Pozol, a beverage full of nutrients, the daily routine of your family, your sense of belonging, of history and of tradition.

This is the story of Jose.

“Cacao is our traditional way of life,” he tells us. He also adds that he and his family use around 60 kg of cacao annually in their kitchen, which they use, among other things, in the making of Pozol, Mole and Polvillo.