Chocolate de Mesa Cuna de Piedra Is Minimalist Decadence

With cold weather comes the opportunity to curl up with a nice blanket, book, and hot cocoa. Thankfully, you can do so in style with Cuna de Piedra, a line of luxury drinking chocolates. These drinking chocolates utilize a minimalist design, with a modern sans-serif typeface taking up little real-estate on the packaging. The negative space helps drive home the idea that quality products are rooted in Mexican tradition. The typeface on the package that denotes the flavor variant is seen once again when the consumer opens the package, ready to indulge in something decadent. 

Drinking chocolate is a typical Mexican drink that has existed since pre-Hispanic times, the way cacao was consumed before the arrival of the Spaniards. In many places of Mexico (such as Oaxaca) drinking chocolate is still consumed regularly on all occasions: funerals, weddings, baptisms and other parties, but in others, the tradition has been lost. That’s why it is essential for us to remember, in the most authentic manner, the way our grandmothers consumed chocolate, and to manage to draw attention through design so that this product it is valued again.

Cuna de Piedra is a bean-to-bar chocolate company whose purpose is to reposition the image of Mexico inside and outside the country. Cuna de Piedra achieves this by highlighting the quality of its products, the talent of its team and its unmistakable design, that what is made in Mexico is excellent. Since these packages are an evolution of the brand, we had to create something that was very different from the existing line packages.

That’s why we chose to be very subtle on the outside, using only the resource of typography on a black background and differentiating the 3 different types of cacao with a detail of color, to later surprise consumers once they open the product and discover that same color but exposed in a beautiful shiny foil that wraps each chocolate.

The choice of these colors: orange, light blue and lilac, was our way of embracing the colorful Mexico, the one that adorns the streets in the festivities, the markets and the typical dresses of the local people.

To complement this incredible project we partnered with HACER COMUN to design a “molinillo”. The “Molinillo” is a kitchen utensil used in Mexico to beat chocolate since pre-Hispanic times. There is evidence in codices explaining that the presence of foam in drinks was a characteristic that had spiritual meaning and this “food of the gods” was reserved only for the privileged class.

Today, chocolate is for everyone, and the molinillo is an object that is still produced and found in the homes of Mexicans. Inspired by traditional forms and without losing its functional sense, we created a contemporary reinterpretation, a sculptural piece that seeks to honor tradition and connect with our roots.

For the design we collaborated with Eduardo Barrita who is the founder of Hacer Común, a design center that links the talent of the crafts to promote the virtues and prosperity in his community, Zimatlán, Oaxaca, through the co-creation of objects of daily use that revalue tradition. For the elaboration, Eduardo worked with Jesús Gómez, a maestro from the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, the area where the molinillos are traditionally produced.