Has anyone tried Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate ? If so, what do you think?Are they bean to bar?Their website is vague about the beans they actually use. (Not a good sign.) For example, they say here . "As agricultural conditions vary from year to year and season to season, each year's product will contain a different percentage of Hawaiian grown cocoa beans. " What other beans are they using to supplement when the Hawaiian supplies are low? What island of HI are their Hawaiian beans grown on?I'd appreciate more info from those who might know.
updated by @chocofiles: 04/21/15 16:15:32

Any reviews of Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory? I'm currently tasting their Criollo Dark bar.How about Malie Kai? They seem to be a fondeur. Can anyone confirm that?How about Private Reserve? I'm not sure if they make bars or just chocolate sauce. They say their chocolate comes from beans grown on the North Shore of O'ahu.

Susie Norris sheds gives some information about Hawaiian chocolate in her blog post .

Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate started the modern Hawaii Chocolate industry. There are 100% Hawaii-grown chocolates sold by Dole from its Waialua, Oahu estate , Malie Kai which also uses Waialua beans, Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory, Kona, Hawaii island to mention a few.

Are you sure about this? I wonder if the Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory was one of the first, if not the first in Hawaii?Malie Kai has marketed their bars well so it's easier to find.IMO the Waialua Estate chocolate by Dole is the best Hawaiian I've tasted. But it's not marketed well, so it's hard to find info about it on the web. The Chocolate Bar database has the most info I could find and there are some discussions about it on the seventypercent forums too.

I'm extremely skeptical about the claims that Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate make for the benefits of "intentional" chocolate.

When I was attending the Hawaii Cacao 2005 conference organized by Pam Williams of Ecole Chocolat, one of the speakers (and it may even have been Skip) mentioned that they've been trying to grow cacao commercially in Hawaii since the 1850s without much success.However, Skip is right that Hawaiian Vintage preceded Original Hawaiian by more than 2.5 years - as least as measured from the dates they started selling chocolate online (Vintage in Jan '99 and Original in Dec '01). By the same measure, Malie Kai didn't start until Dec 04.You are right that the Waialua Estate is not marketed well. Despite having consumer products, Guittar is not a consumer products company - and it shows in their marketing.


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clay - http://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/

i lived in hawaii for years and always shopped at the dole estate... when i discovered the chocolate there i never bought it anywhere else. i love the local flavour of it..... got my local coffee beans just down the road as well.wonderful chocolate.... if you visit.... dont miss it !

Aloha Olorin,Back in the mid 80s Jim Walsh left Chicago and settled in Hawaii. He wanted tostart a chocolate business and collected advanced cacao selections from Malaysia and Phillipines. These materails were planted in Keeau, east side of Hawaii island. He sort farmers who would grow and sell their beans to him. One of the farmers was a retired professor Dr. Clarence Hodges who had recently moved to Kona, west side of Hawaii island. I was on his farm when the hydralic ram dug the holes in the a'a lava field. Attached is a photo of him a year or so later. His health deteriorated, he returned to the mainland, died and his farm was purchased by Bob and Pam Cooper. They rehabilitated the orchard and built the 'Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory'. So they are not the original commercial farm but they are as the name implies the first chocolate factory in Hawaii.

Malie Kai is made from Dole's Waialua Chocolate. They sell the 55% and Milk Chocolate, also flavored bars like Kona Coffe, Lemon Mac nut etc..Dole grows and markets Waialua Estate 70%.( processed by Guittard) . They are packaged in a pack of 5 small bars and (unfortunately) have the Dole Logo on the box.To date it the best chocolate in Hawaii that is marketed, I've tasted some better that are not yet marketed.I sell all the Hawaiian Chocolate in my store, except Vintage who is not really a player here anymore. There are also many small farms producing chocolate they sell locally but do not market outside Hawaii as they don't have the means to make or wrap the bars in a manner that would allow them to be widely distributed. www.sweetparadisechocolate.com

Does anyone here know of a source for Hawaiian cacao beans? I have contacted several farms directly, and cannot get a return phone call. I dont need a lot - even 1-5lbs would be enough, as this is for a Dept of Agriculture project and not for production. If anyone can guide me in the right direction, it would be appreciated.Thanks!

send me an email of who you contacted and I'll give you a few names.I have them at my shop.hawaiichocolate@gmail.com

Clay, You are right that Waialua Estate Chocolate has not been marketed well, but we are working on that.Our website is under construction at waialuaestate.com with a few photos of the farm and processing. There will be information on both the Cacao and Coffee we grow and a listing of places where you can get bars, confections, desserts and good coffee.We also are getting more active in our public outreach with the "Taste of Waialua" events at the Old Sugar Mill in Waialua, and the Kona Chocolate Festival where we recently presented a flourless chocolate cake with Cocoa Outlet and won first place Peoples Choice Award and 2nd place for professional dessert (after Melannie at Sweet Paradise Chocolate) .So we are making our debut and listening to feedback and looking for opportunities to take our products to market.I will do my best to keep up with discussions and can be reached at info@waialuaestate.com.Aloha,Derek

We will be featuring Waialua Estate at our new Sweet Paradise Chocolatier Kings Shops location at Waiakoloa Beach Resort on the Big Island and I will be joint venturing with Ocean Sports on the Kohala Coast to present wine and Hawaiian chocolate tastings on a sunset sail.And Derek, that cake was really awesome!

I think the Waialua Estate will be a big seller eventually, specially once the packaging (- Dole logo) and the bar size change, the chocolate speaks for itself. Farsheed, The Chocolate Guy Hawaii.

I'm glad to hear that your marketing will be improved so that you can reach a wider market with your excellent chocolate! Waialua Estates is one of the best I've tasted and reviewed (of >310). My review notes are attached. I look forward to tasting it again. Is it available anywhere on the mainland other than at Chocosphere?P.S.- I bought my first Waialua Estates from Melanie at Sweet Paradise in Kailua Nov 2008 when I was visiting from NC. My real name is Lowe.

Hi Skip,So HVC doesn't own or grow any of their own chocolate anymore? I read on their site that they claim to have made a new distinct variety of cacao (Hawaiian).From what I gather above, HVC was sold and is now Original Hawaiian? Is that where HVC gets some of their "Hawaiian" beans?

I've had he Dole Waialua Estate and the Malie Kai "dark" chocolate, undeniably there is something special happening with cacao from the Waialua Estate! With both chocolates, there is something wonderful, intriguing, interesting, distinctive going on. However, I don't feel Guittard capable of bringing to bear the potential of these beans. It's too bad that Dole and Malie Kai have Guittard as their chocolate maker, I would like to see someone else get their hands on this special stuff... I gave them both about an 8.5, because potential sensed is not realized. The milk chocolate from Malie Kai was just ho hum average milk chocolate, might as well buy a mass market product (Guittard, perhaps? Well, I guess you are, but you would get more for your money with honesty about what type of product it is... irksome)Also irksome is the marketing hype "The Rarest Cacao on Earth" on the Malie Kai label. Oh let's just drop this already! They are so special indeed that they do not need to have any cacao percentage listed on either package or website, some rather odd marketing strategies going on there, it's ridiculous that you would have to research in order to find out these simple facts.

Being somewhat contaminated with the idea of tasting Hawaiian chocolate I even could get it. The mentioned Waialua Estate, with the Dole logo, extra dark.The taste was great, also the melt, but I am somehow confused by its texture I cant help asking myself why was it like this. Usually, the bite of chocolate remains stabile/hard in your mouth, only the surface melts. However my Hawaiian became something like toffee or chewing gum... flexible when surface melting.In my conscious chocolate consume Ive never tasted texture like this. Well, maybe in sweets, but not in a genuine chocolate. One also cannot blame the shipping there were, for example, also Dagoba squares in the same box, and they had just usual chocolate texture.I guess, something with technology should have gone wrong... And I do agree, a good chocolate requires also a good manufacturer.