Dominican Republic is the main exportator of organic cacao in the world. There is a lot of great cacao produced here but not too many people to prepare a great chocolate out of it.

If everything runs well we will be opening one of our ChocoMuseo in Bvaro, Punta Cana on the 15th of November.

For those who never visited us in one of our other ChocoMuseo in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Per, we will be teaching people about cacao and its artisanal process to be transformed in chocolate. As all the ChocoMuseo, this one will count with its own artisanal chocolate factory, a cacao and chocolat museum and a caf with different chocolate drinks.

We will offer mainly two different activities:

• 2 hours bean to bar chocolate workshop where people learn all the steps from the cacao tree to the chocolate bar and leave the class with its own chocolates
• half-day tour in the cocoa plantation in Dominican Republic and demo of how chocolate is made from the cocoa beans

Our main goal is for people to know more about good chocolate and good cacao.

So, if like me, you love cacao and chocolate then spread the word and eat as much chocolate as you can.

More information soon on cacao in Dominican Republic.

ChocoMuseo
is the interactive Cacao and Chocolate Museum in Cusco, Peru.
In ChocoMuseo, you will be able to learn the secrets of chocolate, its production process, and the history of cacao since the Maya, 1000 years ago.
We'll also organize workshops for you, where you'll make your own chocolate, right from the cacao beans!
If you want to go even deeper in your knowledge, we'll bring you to real cacao plantations, where you'll meet farmers and share their passion.
Finally you will enjoy a chocolate byte or a hot chocolate on our balconies overwiewing the Plaza Regocijo.

We will be more than happy to welcome you and teach you our passion of cacao and chocolate!

Last week, we have finally received our sample of cacao beans from the cooperative we work with (Jose Olaya - Article on our website here ).

With that cacao we made the first steps of chocolate making with Sr Walter Campana in the city of Cusco in Peru.

This video will show you the first steps of our artisanal chocolate process : Toasting, Husk removing, winnowing and grinding.

ChocoMuseo Working with cacao - Trabajando con cacao

Please watch our website ChocoMuseo Peru for more information on our work.

ChocoMuseo, the cacao and chocolate museum in Cusco, Peru will open soon.

To have an idea of how it will look like, please look here for taking a 3D virtual tour.

Next step will be to have a real virtual tour where you can read every sign and learn about cacao and chocolate.

Tomorrow, stone-grinding machines will arrive from the US and we will finally be able to taste and make chocolate with our organic fermented cacao beans obtained from the Jose Olaya Cooperative.

We will tell you more about it in the next post.

While opening the Cacao and Chocolate Museum in Cusco, we decided to travel to the "Valle de la Convencin" (5 hours from Cusco), region where most cacao is produced in Peru.

Talking to some producers or cooperatives, we saw that in fact cacao is not or poorly fermented in these region because farmers do not receive enough money to ferment their cacao so they prefer selling it without fermentation.

A lot of people here in Cusco prepare and produce what they call "Chocolate para taza" which is mainly cacao paste (or cacao liquor) that people use to prepare hot chocolate mixing it with hot water or milk. And in fact a lot of these producers do not know about fermentation and the impact that it has on the flavour of chocolate.

At ChocoMuseo we have decided to work with a small cooperative called "Cooperativa Jose Olaya" to be able to get some good fermented cacao. All the producers seem to be enthusiasmed by the project. For the moment, only 5 or 6 will ferment their cacao properly but the objective is that the whole 104 farmers in a few years will produce high quality cacao and find other buyers who can assure them good prices.

In a week we will receive our first batch of fermented cacao (Chuncho and Hybrid) and we will make our chocolate and see how it will come out. Very exciting in fact! We'll tell you more about it on our blog/website - http://Peru.ChocoMuseo.com

For two months now, Clara Isabel and I are in the fantastic city of Cusco, Per.

Our objective is to open the new cacao and chocolate museum in this city.

For almost 1 month we looked for the perfect place to install this museum. We finally found a great place in the center of Cusco, on the wonderful Plaza Regocijo.

We now have 3 to 4 weeks before opening the museum and we are in the most interesting part: Cacao sourcing. We went to Quillabamba (6 hours away from Cusco) in the jungle to work with some cooperatives. We are now waiting for the cacao to arrive in Cusco and to start preparing our own artisanal chocolate.

We also work with different artists in the region and in the sacred valley to prepare some souvenirs and art pieces for the museum.

We hope to be opening between the 14th of february and the end of february.

Please check our website: http://peru.chocomuseo.com to have all the information about this future place to exchange about Chocolate in Peru