The Chocolate Industry Has Been Wasting the Best Part
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The cacao tree produces one of the most extraordinary fruits on the planet. You've never tasted it. Until now, almost no one had.
You Know the Bean. Not the Fruit.
Every bar of chocolate starts with a cacao pod — a bright, football-shaped fruit that grows straight from the trunk of the tree. Inside, cacao beans sit nestled in a thick, juicy pulp. The chocolate industry wants the beans. The pulp — sweet, fragrant, tropical — gets scraped off and left to rot.
That's millions of metric tonnes of fruit, every single year. Gone.
We thought that was mad. So we made Kaoba.
What Does Cacaofruit Actually Taste Like?
Nothing like chocolate. That's the first thing people say.
Cacaofruit juice is light and tropical. There's a natural sweetness to it — pear, lychee, a flicker of citrus. It's refreshing in a way that feels genuinely different from anything else in the drinks aisle. Not candy-sweet. Not sharp. Just clean, complex, and alive.
We press the juice from Ecuadorian cacaofruit, sourced through Barry Callebaut's Cabosse Naturals — the people who pioneered making something worthwhile from what the industry discards. Then we add sparkling water. That's it. Two ingredients. Nothing else.
90 kcal per can. No added sugar. No flavourings. No shortcuts.
Why Ecuador?
Ecuador is one of the world's great cacao-growing regions — home to fine-flavour varieties prized by chocolatiers everywhere. The fruit those trees produce is exceptional. Rich in vitamin C, polyphenols, and natural sugars. Full of flavour that, for decades, was considered worthless by-product.
We don't think it's worthless. We think it's the point.
What People Are Saying
Jancis Robinson — one of the world's most respected palates — called Kaoba "perhaps the most unusual and distinctive non-alcoholic drink to turn up on my doorstep recently."
We won a Great Taste Award in 2025. One star, judged blind, against thousands of entries. The panel tasted it and knew it was something different.
So did we, from day one.
Find It. Try It.
Kaoba is stocked across independent delis, health cafes, bars and restaurants throughout the UK. If you've seen it on a shelf and wondered what it is — now you know.
Pick up a can. Taste what the chocolate industry threw away.
Find your nearest stockist at drinkkaoba.com, or follow us on Instagram at @drinkkaoba to see where we turn up next.