Blogs

We have started growing Cacao on our finca in the rain forest near the volcano Arenal in Costa Rica . We planted two trees and have started some from beans the we got from a pod .We had 100% of them sprout .Does anybody have any suggestions to aid in both the growth rate of the trees and also the yield . The first photo isof the pod .the second the beans in the pod . the third the beans sprouting [ on the left cleaned - on the right - un - cleaned ] . the next is in pots and the last four days later transplanted into cow manure . As you can see they are growing very rapidly . Thank you - PEACE FROM THE JUNGLE!!!

Dear chocolate makers and chocolate lovers,

I wanted to share my blog, where I'm writing about my chocolate-making endeavors and experiences. Please feel free to comment. If you'd like me to highlight your business or your ideas, shoot me a private message and I'll reach out to do an informational interview.

www.rootchocolate.com

Thanks for being such a great community!

Best,

Landen

When I recently wanted to blog about a Amsterdam-based bean-to-bar chocolate maker I realized that I never properly introduced 'bean-to-bar' on my own blog .

Now I finally made a brief drawing to roughly illustrate the process from tree to chocolate with a focus on the flavor developing steps (which is: fermentation, roasting, conching). Hard to hide my science background I guess...

On my blog post about chocolate making you can also find a higher resolution version of the illustration. Hope you like it. Since so many chocolate making experts are sitting here: Let me know if you find some major misconceptions or have any other type of suggestions! Thanks.

Here I am with Roberto Granja of Transmar, one of the larger cacao companies in Ecuador. Roberto was at last year's Salon as well and they buy production from San Martin and Huanuco in Peru as well as other places.

Above: I am wearing a real Panama hat. Although they are called Panama hats they were originally created in Ecuador. Mine is also made in Ecuador. Below: A "nativo" pod from a cooperative near Cusco. Bottom: Another pod from the same co-op. The genetic diversity of cacao in Peru is astonishing.

On Saturday, the second full day of the Salon, the International visitor spent most of the day participating in business roundtables. You can think of these as business speed-dating. Every half-hour from 10am to 6pm with a two-hour break mid-day, we sat down with representatives from different co-ops. They explained a little bit about the history of the organization and presented samples of what they were doing. Each of us then presented what we were looking for - in terms of beans and/or semi-finished products - at the Salon.

If any ChocolateLife members are interested in getting samples of some very interesting beans from some very interesting sources let me know. Serious inquiries for at least a pallet, please.

There is a lot of confusion in Peru about the word criollo. Well, they're not really confused, we are. They use the term meaning "native" or "from here" as opposed to forastero, or foreign. When we hear criollo we want to believe that we are getting genetic criollos. While there may be some criollo in Peru (and there is a lot of white cacao, though criollo white beans) what is meant when the locals say criollo is "nativo" or native varieties.

While Peru likes to claim that 90% of their cacao is cacao fino - in truth the bulk of the cacao being grown is CCN-51. This is because USAID has focused on productivity for most of the past 20 years, believing, correctly, that it needed focus on providing farmers a viable economic alternative to coca. Low-yielding strains did not fit that model.

Now, a lot of effort is focused on providing alternatives to CCN-51. Varieties that can yield as much as CCN-51 but that offer much better flavor.

Above: Here I am with representatives of one of the co-ops I met with - Kemito Ene - which is near the Rio Ene in the south. They are doing impressive work, had one of the best presentations, and provided samples of some very excellent beans.

For an equipment geek the show was also very interesting. There were two companies exhibiting machines to process cocoa beans into chocolate. While none of the local companies is really ready for prime time export, they are not far off, and I will be working to improve the quality and see what I can do to make them available to purchase. One company is offering an 80kg per hour cracking/winnower that delivers really quite remarkable performance - at a cost of under US$5000 ex-works. I also saw a small roaster and a number of pin mills that were very attractively priced for the throughput.

It is difficult for foreigners to really appreciate what the Salon means to Pervians in general and to the cocoa and chocolate markets domestically an internationally. It is important to grown both the national and international markets at the same time. Bringing in international visitors shows the average Pervian the respect the international market has for Pervian cacao and chocolate ... and great strides are being made in the quality of production that is being done in-market, noticeable even from one year ago. Pervieans are fiercely proud of their culture and their food traditions, rightfully so. (Lima is host to the world's largest food festival - Mistura - and hosts a dynamic foodie culture that rivals anything in South America (and many large cities in the US. But it's not yet possible to get good pizza, I hear. Peru is an incredibly inventive fusion of cultures with access to foods from the Amazon that most of us have never heard of before and they are not afraid to use them.)

The 5th annual Salon del Cacao y Chocolate was held in Lima, Per July 4-6. This was followed up by La Ruta del Cacao, a trip into la selva (the jungle) in and around Tarapoto in San Martin province July 7-9. I was one of a group of more than 20 invited international guests who attended both the Salon and La Ruta.

As with last year, the two events were organized and enjoyed the support of a broad range of organizations and government ministries including the Pervian federal government Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Economic Development, DEVIDA (National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs), PromPer (the Ministry of Foreign Commerce and Tourism), Technoserve (a US-based NGO), APPCACAO (the Pervian cacao growers association), and USAID, among others.

The Salon del Cacao y Chocolate and La Ruta del Cacao serve a number of purposes:

1. To promote Pervian cacao and chocolate internationally.
2. To promote Pervian cacao and chocolate on the national market.
3. To showcase the work that has been done in the cocoa sector of the Pervian economy in terms of the improvements in yield and quality, but also as a means to combat the narcotics trade by providing farmers with an alternative to growing coca.

This year, the Salon was held near the Parque des Aguas in the Parque de la Reserva instead of in a hotel conference center. 5 tents were erected for the Salon - one for general business activities, one for a series of kitchen demos, two for art exhibits, and the main tent which held all of the stands for the exhibitors.

Above: A view of one of the fountains in the Parque des Aguas. This is the typical winter weather in Lima. Below: A panorama of the tents making up the Salon del Cacao in the Parque de las Reserva.

As a venue, the Parque was a much better choice than a hotel ballroom because it offered more or less unlimited outside space to relieve crowding and congestion - and this year the organizers were expecting as many as 30,000 (!!!) visitors to attend. Sadly, attendance did not meet expectation as there were two quarter-final World Cup matches on both of the first two days. Much as people love chocolate, their love of and for the World Cup runs deeper.

I arrived in Lima on the 2nd in order to attend the opening session on the morning of the 3rd. This included talks by the head of DEVIDA, the president of APPCACAO, a representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the #2 person from USAID in Per. These presentations were to be as expected. What was unexpected was the attendance - especially the number of media outlets that were represented including national newspapers, radio, and television. We don't have any event in chocolate here in the US that can match the attention that gets paid to the Salon in Per. We certainly don't have the head of the USDA showing up to any chocolate festivals telling us how important cocoa and chocolate are to the US economy - because they're not that important.

After the opening ceremonies and before we headed out to a lunch for the international contingent hosted by ChocoPer - a group of chocolate makers and confectioners in Per, the exhibits were open so we (actually, the government ministers and the press) could take an advance look.

Above: A shot of the attendance and media at the opening session. Below: VIP guests in the booth of the Mishky cooperative. which is located in Chasuta in San Martin province. Bottom: A view of the Pacific Ocean from the Larco Mar - where we had lunch - an upscale shopping mall built into a cliff in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima. I did not see the sun break through the clouds the entire time I was in Lima.

The international group for the Salon this year was entirely different from last year - except for me. A number of ChocolateLife members were in attendance, from the US, Australia, Chile, Mexico, and Belgium. (The entire list of countries represented also included Holland, France, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia.) Several members I'd never met before, and some were old friends - though we were all fast friends by the end of the trip. Although we were there to be be observers, we were also there to be active participants. Every single one of us had the option of giving a presentation or to give a kitchen demonstration. I chose to give a presentation (my topic was marketing Pervian finished chocolates internationally), but the projection screen was broken so all of us had to improvise and give our presentations without our support materials.

You can check out my reviews of the chocolates I've tasted at Choco Files . I also explain my review philosophy and I'm adding more and more files with my ratings for each bar.

Hello everyone,

For quite some time now, Ive been in love and fascinated with theobroma cacao, the plant. Whose seed was once used as currency in pre-columbian civilizations in South America I live in Puerto Rico, one of the places the Spanish conquistadors brought seeds and and started commercial production in the 17th century. Historical records show that along with ginger, cacao was the main agricultural crop at that time.

In that same century, the archipelago was hit by a hurricane that affected the crops. Because of food shortages, farmers had to abandon cacao. Almost three centuries later, generations of those original trees, (some people speculate that some naturalized varieties are related to Venezuelas porcelanas), remain hidden at old farms.

It is a fascinating story, but not the one we would like to read on history books and remember with nostalgia. Together with other initiatives, we would like to be part of the resurgence of cacao production in Puerto Rico.

Not any cacao, but one of the finest, social and environmentally responsible in the world.

Ive setup a kickstarter campaign to help us accelerate the plans to bring back Puerto Ricos cacao heritage and reboot commercial production. In addition to the traditional ways of helping us we also are accepting the most popular cryptocurrencies.

We've set up a series of rewards for different pledge levels, including final artisan bars, dehydrated cacao pods (for souvenir or educational purposes) , adopt-a-tree program, and other items that you may find of your liking.

Were open to suggestions and any questions you may have.

You can find more details of the story and our plan at the official campaign clicking the image below :

25 Years in chocolate and pastry business , i design pastry and chocolate and design Special Machinery i have more than 180 customers around the world , i give ideas and know how , sometime recipe , i help to provide chefs , machines . material , to share you any question in business start up even mechanical or electrical problems in your machine

i hope i get good friends from this site since i belong to this business and chocolate life

Amsterdam is not only an extremely pretty city. It also offers some great options for chocolate lovers and its chocolate scene was growing fast during the last few years, so I now list the best Amsterdam chocolate locations on my blog . There are many very decent chocolatiers and some really excellent ones. There is a fantastic chocolate bar shop specialized in high quality single origin chocolates. There are even two local bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers (Chocolatemakers + Metropolitan). Further, there is a growing number of annual chocolate events and meetings such as Chocoa or the Origin Chocolate Event .

Certainly worth a visit I'd say

Here's for example the city's chocolatiers:

Metropolitan

My personal Amsterdam favorite. Pretty reductionist design and made from great own bean-to-bar chocolate and with fantastic ganache fillings. Try the Jalapeno or the Mandarin or the Lemon Yes!

Patisserie Kuyt

Arguably the finest of Amsterdams more traditional styled bonbons. The pleasantly small sized bonbons look like they come right from a confectioners textbook. And they taste great!

Van Velzes

Sympathetic small chocolatier in Amsterdam Oost making pretty and very decent pralines. Van Velze doesnt pretend to be fancy and revolutionary and sticks to traditional style ganache fillings of very good quality. Definitely worth it!

Puccini Bomboni

Many people rave about Puccinis bonbons. I dont, they are far too big and massive for my liking. But they clearly do look good and have nice flavor combinations. Their bonbons are handmade in Amsterdam and are sold at three different locations in the city center.

Unlimited Delicious

Used to be a place to also look for unconventional pralines. That is much less the case right now. Still, their bonbons are well-made and worth a try. Then again, I find the flavors too timid, too much aiming at everybodys convenience. But try their classic, the Rosemary-Sea-salt and youll see what they are capable of.

Patisserie Holtkamp

Pragmatic Dutch bonbons. Not impressive looking, but then tasting so much better than expected. Fine taste and very traditional flavor combinations. And be warned you will have a hard time not also taking one of their many pastries along as soon as you enter their shop.

Madame Pompadour

You like the good old bonbon and dont feel like trying those new-fashioned samples with stuff like Jalapeno (Metropolitan) or Rozemary seasalt (Unlimited delicious) flavors? Right. Nothing wrong with that. Just traditional, handmade, fine chocolates? Madame Pompadour might look like the ideal place for that. And it is indeed not bad, but I somehow prefer the classic flavored bonbons from Kuyt, Holtkamp, or Van Velze.

ChocoVivo , just ten minutes east of Venice, is the first bean to bar chocolate manufacturer Ive found in LA.

For the full story (including taste-testing!) come on over to The Chocolate Tourist blog .