Sourcing Cacao in South East Asia and Oceania.

Hello everyone,

I thought Id introduce myself a bit more and hope to get some of your professional input.

Me and my partner are starting a bean-to-bar company. Just a brief background of us, Im French and Ive been a Professional Waiter in some great gourmet places in Melbourne, NZ and France and my partner, British, is a Digital Art Director and we are currently based in London. Both of us combined hope to bring a great bar to this world, with the all best intentions.

Were wanting to travel to Indonesia next year for a base to start sourcing and sampling beans in SE Asia and Oceania.

We would be grateful if anyone had any advice, ideas, experience or anything you think we should know. Or perhaps some contacts for translators would also be helpful.

Many thanks in advance, and I look forward to everyones response!

Thomas & Bo

Selamat jalan (Bahasa for safe travels...)

You've picked a tough place to start, mate - almost no one in indonesia ferments their beans, and pod borer is a nightmare there. great beans can certainly be made there, however it's not part of the culture to do so, so it's a bit of a treasure hunt.

I have absolutely no idea about cocoa production in Indonesia, but I am Indonesian(-Australian) and like Sebastian above, I agree that it's a tough place, chocolate technicalities aside. Do you know anyone in Indonesia?

An owner of the chocolate factory in Yogyakarta is French (look up Monggo Chocolate) and as far as I know he uses local chocolate. Another guy in Jakarta is French also (L'atelier du chocolat) but I believe he uses Swiss chocolate.

When you make bars can you send some test bars this way or are you selling any bar yet.

Where are you located now?

I am on the other end a consumer and work in retail and interested in either blended or plain dark single origin bars.

I live in the New York City area