https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010O0JZTM This is my favorite raw cacao for taste. However I think I'll take the cadmium and lead contamination concerns a bit more seriously next time around (even though this company claims they test well) and switch to The Navitas Nibs: https://www.amazon.com/Navitas-Organics-Cacao-Nibs-oz/dp/B000OQ4A3S - which had among the best independently tested antioxidant / heavy-metal ratios last time I checked.
Using a raw cacao instead of a dutch process alkalized cocoa (which I'd use if I wanted a more traditional cocoa taste) will yield much higher concentration of cocoa's various antioxidants. Unfortunately, it'll also give you more cadmium and lead vs alkalized dutch cocoa or dark chocolate. To mitigate this issue, I just... don't drink this stuff every day. I use it as a mild stimulant / comfort drink. I'll do the same when I switch to the nibs (coffee grinder should powder it, I hope).
My highly variable recipe:
- A bunch of cacao
- A bunch of salt (seems to decrease need for sweetener)
- Small amounts of Stevia (KAL brand) + Monk Fruit (pure powder, no erythritol, I've had good results with my latest NAMANNA monk fruit batch containing 25% mogroside V). My goal here is to minimize the stevia because it possibly inhibits dopamine-related gene expression. It doesn't feel good taking a lot of Stevia, IMO.
- Mix of hot water and hot full-fat milk.
- Glycine for extra sweetness (and to further minimize Stevia w/o adding sugar). This amino acid is sweet, almost like sugar.
- I'd prefer a little sugar to a lot of stevia. Of course, I can just increase the sugar a bunch more and switch to traditional dutch-process cocoa (which will not require as much sweetener) for special occasions (winter holidays). I liked the Valrhona dutch cocoa last time I tried it, but I didn't check heavy metals or polyphenol / flavanol tests. Note that the flavanol content may be anywhere from 2x to 25x lower than raw cacao depending on degree of alkalization.
Still worth it. I love cocoa.
Edit: Fixed formatting