Fernando,

Sorry I just got on this site for the first time the other day so I am not aware of who is who. I have not been to your farm as far as I know.

Max

Hello Max have you been at my farm? What year?

It's quite right that proper fermentation, soil nutrition and other factors can help the CCN51 taste much better than a poorly grown and processed bean. The Arriba accomplish this much easier.

The San Jacinto plantation was founded and is run by a very stringent biologist who has experimented quite a bit and produced some fantastic beans. I made up some samples of it in Guayaquil and they taste exquisite. I brought them to a client for a blind taste test and they picked them out of a choice of other CCN51 and Arriba of equivalent formulas.

Generally speaking if you really want richness, you are best off using Arriba beans for the cocoa liquor, and Arriba for the cocoa butter, making sure there is some verification they are Arriba, and whoever is processing them does it right.

Thanks for the clarification PIerrick! Yes, I can understand the milk recall. I know most processors aren't willing to go through the thorough cleaning the production line needs to get a "pure" product, since it involves shutting it down and the related costs.

Hello jeff;

We tried three different kind of partnerships in Ecuador at the beginning ( late 90's). At the time, no one was making high quality dark chocolate in Ecuador. (Tulicorp was just cleaning their first second hand conch , and we also did some sample run with them) we wanted to leave as much money as possible in Ecuador and make the first farmer's chocolate right there. We were proud of doing everything in country., Ecuacocoa was only making liquor then , Republica de cacao did not exist, kallari was busy grafting and expanding their replication center.( which we visited at the inception of the project: impressive) , and we wanted to make the chocolate in Ecuador . Ecuacocoa agreed to work with us and transform our cocoa beans into liquor, then chocolate at the conditon we would provide the missing equipment. The first batches made us realize; the machines were not conducive to reach the flavor profile we wanted , and we had heat and blooming issues,( due to the constant humidity ) later compounded by a product recall for traces of milk in a chocolate. So the trial was not conclusive . You probably visited Ecuacocoa at that time. and you stand correct for having seen the initial phase. Being the Pioneer, we had to explore all possible avenues in country, This took time, missteps and personal frictions. We learned from our errors and concluded we had toredesign in house the bean to chocolate process according to flavors and not volume or speed. This is what we do presently in our mini plant in the USA . We kept working with our Ecuadorian farmers, and the commodity chain,( printers etc), we developed more than a decade ago. I hope this clarify all rumors and misconceptions about Vintage Plantations: You post could mislead chocolate connoisseurs into thinking we are presently making chocolate in Ecuador, and that's what we are trying to correct.

Sincerely;

Thanks for the update Pierrick. Correct me if Im mistaken, but Ecuacocoa was processing your product for you at one time, is that not correct? I have no information on who or how you source your beans, but I do recall seeing your packaging on the factory floor in bulk on a factory tour at Ecuacocoa over two years ago. I can understand if you have changed processors or are doing it yourself.

On your web site it states at http://www.vintageplantations.com/store/our-mission/our-factory.html :

"Once our beans are collected, we follow a very specific procedure (tailored to each batch) for one week to transform our cocoa beans into 66 lbs. of chocolate blocks. This is the easiest way to store and move cocoa around in a very hot and humid country (we learned our lesson from trying to complete our process and package the products in Ecuador, only to see that we had melted and bloomed most of our production during truck movements from place to another). Hence, these blocks are sealed and brought to our premises in the USA for further processing and packaging."

So do you have the bulk chocolate made into bars in the US, or are you shipping liquor out of Ecuador, or bulk chocolate? It would be nice to have a clarification.

Just want to get the facts straight. Happy New Year!

Hello jeff;

Please see my reply to Lars above .It would be a good idea to check with us prior to posting this kind of statement.Many of our friends have been here in Newark processing cocoa beans with us. You may meet with Jenny samaniego which is our Managing director and is visiting her parents in Quito presently until January 2012. just email her at Jenny@vintageplantations.com. She will be happy to meet with you and show pictures of the cocoa beans we bought from the farmer 4 days ago. they are presently being shipped to our collection point for further shipping to the USA.

Wishing you a great year 2012.

Pierrick Chouard and Allan Suarez

Founders

Vintage Plantation Chocolate

Hello Lars;

One of our friend mentioned your comment about Vintage Plantations Chocolates. I am correcting your statement.

Vintage Plantations is owned by us: Allan Suarez and Pierrick Chouard. Allan is 2 nd generation Ecuadorian. Mr Crepso was never the owner of Vintage Plantations chocolate. he was hired to collect cocoa beans from three cooperatives nearby whcih were rainforest alliance certiifed. he did not work out. We partnered briefly with mr. crespo , and created Vintage Plantations Ecuador. Mr Crespo was the representative in charge of managing the local business until we were proven wrong.

We currently purchase cocoa beans from small farmers from the Los rios area. These cocoa beans are being shipped back to the USA in order to re- establish complete control of the process from beans to chocolate. After our rupture with Mr. Crespo, This individual kept on using our ressources to sell chocolates using our molds and other equipment we could not retrieve from Ecuador.

Jody:

The GoBe concept is quite interesting so all the best luck. For many years I've been promoting (privately) purposeful ecotourism as a model for assisting communities and individuals. There's a great example at Cotton Tree Lodge in Belize and their collaboration with farmer Eladio Pop, Sustainable Harvest International, and other resources.

Let me know how TheChocolateLife community can help.

:: Clay

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Hello Friend,

Our our upcoming Cacao trip to Ecuador (January 7th - 17th) we'll spend two days with Samuel Von Rutte, a farmer near Quevedo, who is working hard toisolate and propogate the purest <and highest quality> strains of Nacional. We still have space available on the trip if you (or someone you know) would like to join us: http://gonowbefree.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/january-2011-trip-to-ecuador-the-origin-of-chocolate-and-the-celebration-of-indigenous-culture/

I just found that that farm genotypes were in fact tested (back in 1995). That person has the first collection of Ecuadorian flavor cocoa!!!!Check this link http://www.koko.gov.my/CocoaBioTech/ING_Workshop (47-55).htmlThere are more pages like this one, and several papers that used material from this farm.

Interesting...About the second part (spotting CNN), they are probably plants in which the scion died and the stock growth.Never mind, the cool thing about grafting is that it allows you to keep the genetic material you want without change (and without high tech). So I think that guy has a treasure of genotypes. He can probably get them tested. I hope he or she keeps track of the plants... I bet that person knows about a few outstanding plants that he or she could use for scions... maybe a plant with yield as good as CCN???

updated by @jeff-stern: 09/08/15 19:47:39

and the pods will be Nacional!!!

Quite interesting. There are some people that say that CCN-51 root system is better in conditions of water scarcity/irrigation , so I wonder if that is the case for drafting Nacional in CCN-51. Do you know if your acquittance have his or her farm in a dry area and depend on irrigation? (I also wonder if they have a lot of problems with mal de machete, because CCN is more sensible to this specific disease than Nacional...).

I do know personally of two farms where Nacional is grafted onto CCN51 rootstock, not the other way around. Perhaps this is an anomaly.Point taken about coops.Definitely, your last point on marketing is true...the terms have been so abused, especially Arriba, as to have become meaningless.

Two things:Jeff, the practice is to graft CCN-51 scions in Nacional stock (so you get a CCN-51 tree and pods with Nacional root stock). Grafting is a asexual plant reproduction technique... so you get 'pure' scion material. If people were grafting pure Nacional scion on CCN-stock you will get pure Nacional pods... the stock does not contribute to the pods (well, depends who pollinates what... but that is a another tale).About coops mixing Nacional and CCN-51, I wouldn't generalize. Some do mix, some other do not because they have premiums for Nacional... and the members are old and they have only Nacional trees. You have a considerable amount of self-selection among coop members. Cheaters are normally expelled if the coop is buying fresh beans (en baba). The "pepa" of CCN and the "pepa" of Nacional are quite distinctive (hybrids Nacional x CCN are a nightmare... but what do we call these? So,if a coop pays a premium of $10 for Nacional, if they pay market price (or below market price) for CCN-51, this pushes CCN farmers to the intermediaries (and out of the coops), because these guys gave them some other things (i.e., loans) and the productivity of the crop supplies for the other services...Nevertheless, even in the best case (premiums: 40% over market price for FT ORG cocoa), but CCN-51 yields three times as much as Nacional.... so younger cacaoteros tend to have CCN51.For the rest.... I agree with you... I think Nacional or Arriba have become merely a marketing term, buy quality is more a hit and miss thing (depends on who, what year, what was the sourcing that person used).

Interesting, and pertinent, Samantha. Love that erudition.The marvel to me is somehow from those original cacaos somewhere near the confluence of what is today Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil; some of it travels south, some eastward that become purple, the "forastero" type. I can understand a slow spread like that.But the other trip, north and west where the first indications of its use are in Mexico, south of Tabasco, 2000 rugged miles away-- the white type, the "criollo" appears. Monkeys (they are ubiquitous in cacao country Mexico and Nicaragua) do not eat cacao, luckily for these farmers. Squirrels eat plenty but they tend to eat the pods right on site, as we see from the seeds dropped directly beneath the trees, uneaten.I find it hard to swallow that humans carried it all that way, before the year 2000 BC. [I heard from a learned doctor that pre-Olmecs used cacao.] Seeds do not remain viable very long outside the pod. Pods tend to rot pretty quickly.And Samantha-- in spite of her PhD in Chocolatology uses the word "seed", referring to the same thing the hifalutin text refers to interchangably as "cotyledon" and seed.

Thank you for this Brian. Where are you, and what is the (suspected?) pedigree of this cacao?

> possible to have a cross where 50% will be white and 50% purple also. Basic Medellian >genetics.Possible no doubt. I've never seen it but will be looking closely at a lot of cacao pretty soon.

Yes you are right, the color, indicating the presence of flavonoids, is found in most cacao, but some "rare/pure" are white/pinkish. Normally, the purple color trait segregates as a dominant trait, so yes, in a cross with a criollo, the seeds will usually, but not always be purple. It is possible to have a cross where 50% will be white and 50% purple also. Basic Medellian genetics.

Yes, thanks we agree as to what a cotyledon is. I have seen various writers talk of the color of the "cotyledon" when the CONTEXT told me they meant SEED. That is, the inner seed inside the hull.I find it odd that I have rarely if ever, in my rustic research, that writers remark the color of the seed. From my experience in the field, in Mexico, the "criollo" has pink seeds. I think that otherwise pink or white seeded cacaos are very rare. I'm thinking that perhaps one of the first traits the forastero shares in a cross is its purple color. As I have rarely seen seeds other than purple colored in a region whose original stuff was the criollo.Please correct me in this...

Just to be clear about the photo... the wrinkled things near the bottom are the cotyledons, which are formed during embryo development and make up the bulk of the seed, after germination these stay on the plant for a week or two and all the nutrients inside are used by the seedling, then what is left over just falls off the seedling. These are not leaves. The green leaves at the top of the plant are formed from the apical meristem which is a tiny speck at the top of the embryo in the seed, you could not see it without a microscope until the seedling starts to grow and produce leaves. I hope this clarifies this discussion.Mark Guiltinan

A fine and learned discussion here. Not sure if this matters much, but it is a piece of the puzzle: the USDA offers free testing to determine the percentage of criollo-type genes, and forastero genes. The guy I've been discussing this with at USDA is Mr Dapeng Zhang,Dapeng.Zhang@ARS.USDA.GOVAnother piece of the puzzle-- the color of the cacao seed. As far as I can tell almost all cacao seeds are purple, which is a forastero trait. This of course does not mean that all purples are mainly forastero. I know one purple seeded variety that tastes (to my rustic palate) very criollo, very mellow.However, I'd guess that the white and pink seeded varieties (pretty rare I think) are either all or mostly criollo.I intend to find out more in the coming harvest in NicaraguaWhenever I've seen seed color referred to, wirters use the word "cotyledon." I believe this is incorrect: the cotyledon is the first LEAF out of the seed, here's an official definition: "A leaf of the embryo of a seed plant, which upon germination either remains in the seed or emerges, enlarges, and becomes green. Also called seed leaf."I'm no expert, JS Hepler

Hi Alex,CCN51 is called Don Homero, for Homero Castro.

Thank you!

The readings list is:Knapp, Arthur W. 1920. Cocoa and chocolate: Their History from Plantation to Consumer. Chemist. 1920 ed. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd.Lery, Francois. 1954. Le Cacao. 1st Edition. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Parsons, James J. 1957. Bananas in Ecuador : A New Chapter in the History of Tropical Agriculture. Economic Geography 33, no. 3: 201-216.Tyler, Charles Dolby. 1894. The River Napo. The Geographical Journal 3, no. 6: 476-484. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773582 .Whymper, Robert. 1921. Cocoa and chocolate, their chemistry and manufacture. Second Edition. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son & Co.Wolf, T. H. 1893. The Western Lowland of Ecuador. The Geographical Journal 1, no. 2: 154-157.van Hall, Constant Johan Jacob. 1914. Cocoa. London: Macmillan and Co, Ltd.You can get access to Van Hall and the others 1920's books via Google books; for journals, depends if your library has a subscription.

Hi Cristian,fascinating information. Can you tell me where you found this account?

Scientist will read it, and keep digging. The issue is that Motomayor worked with cacao from live collections (think on large cocoa gardens where they (more or less) know from where each plant came), so it is not like all is said and done. You will need more info (more points) for making this info part of a GIS. Well, it is a start, and lets hope costs go down so we can use this technique more often.

FYI, Cone and Taura are located in the region that was known as "Abajo" back in the good old days (according to Parsons 1957). Most people ignore that there used to be a regional classification by 1920's, so you had cacao de Bahia, de Esmeraldas, Arriba, etc. Each variety had its own 'bouquet.' For example, there is one account that says that the cacao de Bahia (Bahia de Caraques, not the the Bahia from Brasil) was especial because they used to wet the beans with sea water at the port (!!). Also, I would think that we should start thinking in following Motomayor et al. 2008, which offers a really nice genetic classification of cacao by origin.

Hello Casey;I just became a member on chocolate life Upon receiving an email form a friend mentioning there was comments on our chocolate" Vintage Plantations" which were not true. Comments posted by lars Klassen .Vintage Plantations is not owned by the Crespo family. Vintage Plantations does not say " Arriba" on its bars.We do not use cocoa beans from the Crespo family. We partnered with this family in Ecuador, in order to have a collection point for our nacional cocoa beans coming from the Luz y Guia Cooperatives and la Florida cooperatives. The Crespo family could not collect enough cocoa beans from the cooperatives and we started to use a mix of CCn51 with the nacional. It appears The Crespo family goals diverged very quickly with our goal. and we no longer work with this family. As klars Klassen says, we work with small farms group of 12-15 families growing exclusively old "nacional antigua" Not the new nacional. ( another pandora Box). Upon trying many different model for sourcing only the old varietals from Ecuador , we have concluded , considering the constant hybridations of cocoa genotypes, that it was more accurate to talk about the Location and how it was fermented. The company is owned by Allan Suarez, and Pierrick Chouard by the way. We started sourcing cacao in Ecuador upon visiting Alaln suarez extended Family in the barrios of Guayaquil and bringing them clothes and others ustensiles from the USA. We have been Teaching about cacao post harvest process in Ecuador with my college friends from CIRAD. I Hope it dispells the misunderstanding. On a personal note: very good Chocolate was made using very mediocre Cocoa beans: When I launched Michel Cluizel chocolates in the USA , prior to pursuing my sustainable goals with Vintage Plantations chocolates, we sourced cocoa beans from a family in Dominican republic. This family benefited from students from Holland who were doing their PHD's on Post harvest process. Upon meeting these students and tinkering with their system, it appears they had excellent results, which were fully exploited by Michel Cluizel into a Good chocolate bar. My point ; The discussion of origins or genotypes is not a guarantee of quality in chocolate. and using "origins" as a marketing tool is premature until there is an independant international Audit controlling and certfiying : the entire commodity chain. We are a long way away from the wine and I am not sure this is the way to go. I would recommend: against making your choice of buying chocolates according to origins, or genotypes today.The Word" arriba" Is not on our chocolate bars precisely for these reasons.
updated by @pierrick-marie-chouard: 09/07/15 12:07:45

What many people may not realize is that two of the current names used to describe cacao varieties (criollo, forastero) are examples of how the victors write history.Criollo means, roughly, native (e.g., comida tipica criolla), and forastero, roughly, foreign. In the context of cacao, criollo means "from here" and forastero means "imported from elsewhere" and are therefore quite meaningless when talking about varieties of cacao as the "native" (as in, original varieties) are the foreign ones - as there is now consensus that criollo varieties were selectively bred from forasteros as the Mesoamericans (the Toltecs and Olmecs) found uses for the seeds where South American Indian tribes focused on uses for the pulp.Criollo and forastero are just as confusing as the term "arriba" which only means "up" (also, over, above, forward) and refers to where traders had to go ("up" the Guayas river from Guayaquil) to get the fine flavor cacao best known as Nacional.Over time these generic terms were applied to specific varieties of cacao without paying any attention to their original meanings.Motamayor's study is perhaps the first serious attempt to try to rationalize the naming scheme. However, I find it interesting that with the exception of "criollo" and "amelonado" all of the suggested new names refer to specific places. Amelonado is a reference to the shape of a pod - melon-shaped - of a specific variety of forastero originating in Brasil. It is likely that criollo varieties in Venezuela were almost certainly re-introduced from Mesoamerica.Ultimately, I don't see that there will be much uptake of these terms outside of the academic/scientific community - and perhaps hard-core enthusiast community - any time soon. Too much marketing and advertising has been done around the existing terms to make the transition easy. Plus, with an increasing emphasis on origins it's going to be hard to differentiate (meaningfully) between, for example, Nacional and Curaray; both are from Ecuador and Curaray is an obscure river south of the Napa in the Oriente.I think more people would understand and appreciate the distinction between "heirloom" (e.g., Nacional) and "hybrid" (e.g., CCN 51) cacao varieties.


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I wonder what the scientific community thinks about this study. There maybe a study that deals in more detail with the location. I could see making maps of the varieties in such a way that the work as layers.

Here are a couple of other fascinating discussions around here for more information about reclassification of cacao varieties, in this one we are pointing out different things about cacao of Ecuador. http://www.thechocolatelife.com/forum/topics/1978963:Topic:4592 http://www.thechocolatelife.com/forum/topics/cacao-info-resources

Yea, what a neat and clear panorama of the cacaos . It certainly revolutionizes the traditional view in terms of varieties. The idea of the google map is great. I think we are talking about many maps, if we want more detail, many maps put together.

It would be cool to see Figure 1 of this study on Google Map.

Very interesting. I'm going to go to the link and read more. What a breakthrough. This could mean so much for the world of chocolate! Please keep me informed as you find more information. I would appreciate it.

Yes, itis amazing, but something that surprized me the most was the fact that there are some theories that imply that there are many more types of cocoa than we initially thought. This comes out of a serious genetic study .Check it out in the following link. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003311#aff4 The conclusions are:Should cacao be reclassified from the traditional 3 (Forastero,Criollo, Trinitario) into the 10 categories suggested in the researchstudy *Geographic and Genetic Population Differentiation of theAmazonian Chocolate Tree.The suggested new categories are:1.Amelonado Brazil2. Contamana - Peru3.Criollo - Central America, Venezuela4.Columbia5.Curaray - Ecuador6. Guiana - Guyane7.Iquitos - Peru8.Maraon - Brazil (Amazon) and Peru9.Nacional - Ecuador10.Nanay - Peru11. Purs PeruThe arriba cacao from Ecuador, is a a type of Nacional

This is so interesting. I always thought these beans were really just aversion of Trinitario and were no longer around. The few bars that I've come across out there made me wonder. I thought perhaps some genius crossed the Trinitario and Criollo and tried to make a new hybrid. It just goes to show you that you never know. Mother nature is funny.

Casey:I think the traditional importers of cacao arriba started business many years before CCN51 appeared. They are for a long time used to the characteristic flavor and aromas of arriba, i dont think they would ever change or be cheated about it. Plus they have an educated consumer who p for that quality.In the laws of Ecuador, there are prohibitions to mix the CNN51 with arriba or Nacional.Arriba strictly talking, only grows in a defined geographical area of Ecuador, arriba, means up the river, in the surroundings of the Guayas an Babahoyo rivers, in higher elevations, than other lower land cocoas. Nacional, in the other side is the term that embodies all the forasteros considered to be fine in Ecuador.Both Nacional an Arriba are forasteros.In the last century, about a hundred years ago, the plagues almost killed the arriba varietals and many cocoa varietals were introduced to strenght the original arriba cocoa. These other cocoa from Venezuela, Trinidad, etc gave the original arriba the power to survive the plagues, but the main character arriba prevailed through the years. Our actual arriba got some criollo and trinitario features.For some especialistas the arriba original variety still exists pure just in a 10% of the whole fine cocoa in Ecuador.Definetibelly I think the cocoa and chocolate conosseurs buy the best national and arriba cocoa, while the CCN51 is internally and externally of lower consideration. It just does not attain any of the real characteristics of fine cocoa.There is a need to protect the arriba origin, and there is a project in Ecuador led by official, and private organizations to legalize the arriba in the frame of the Ecuador laws under the origin denomination (denominacin de orgen) .That is for now, there is a lot more to talk about arriba....Mara Soledad Troya

This is a photo of the front entrance to the Rancho San Jacinto. I visited there in October 2005. Across the street is (or was) a roadside stand where you could get fresh cacao pulp smoothies and warm pan de yucca con queso (cheese bread made from yucca (cassava) flour).


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