Nicely researched list of Pacific cacao suppliers! If you're willing to look further afield, check out Whittaker's and Shoklade in New Zealand. They may have some pure chocolate liquor available for you, which is what you were describing as "Ground conched fermented [roasted] country variety cocoa bean".
Guittard makes a product like this called "Oban" but that'd be a long way away (California) to get chocolate for you.
The cacao farm up in Mossman you may be talking about is very fledgling and I haven't heard about them shipping any beans yet, let along pressing them for cocoa powder. Can you use whole chocolate in your pops instead of powder? You may have better luck finding whole chocolate couverture from some of the local chocolate makers like Haighs or the others mentioned in this post:
http://www.thechocolatelife.com/forum/topics/zokoko-australia-weigh...
and these guys Chocolate Farm
El Palacio Nacional (which I think is in the same place or right next to the Museum of Anthropology) has some great Diego Rivera friezes that depict the Aztec and Maya history of cacao, unfortunately the best one is in the corner upstairs. Not a great viewing spot.
Mayordomo shops around town, the closest one 2 km away,
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Norte+3860,+Centro,+72000+Puebla,+Mexico+ (Chocolate+Mayordomo+de+Oaxaca)&daddr=Plaza+de+la+Constituci%C3%B3n+1,+06060+Mexico+City,+Mexico+(Palacio+Nacional)&geocode=FZhYKAEdrM8W-iFTFEI1emVTfw%3BFYprKAEd1owW-iEbSuaAdLTwCg&hl=en&mra=pd&mrcr=0&sll=19.402654,-99.176466&sspn=0.103462,0.115185&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=15
have a good selection of moles and coarse ground chocolate bars. This is the standard Oaxacan drinking chocolate.
But I know from my experiences with coffee that the molecules are somewhat different among different plants: kola nuts, yerba mate, tea, and even arabica versus robusta coffee all vary in how their xanthinealkaloid effect the CNS.
Just to clarify, the specific methyl xanthine alkaloids (theobromine, caffeine, and theophylline) do not differ in their makeup, but the relative amounts of each differ between all these plants, and between varieties of each plant as stated above with criollo vs. forastero cacao. There has been some claims that yerba mate contains a different xanthine than caffeine, called mateine that is a stereoisomer of caffeine, but this is impossible since a stereoisomer must have an optical or chiral center (one atom in the structure that has 4 different molecules attached to it, so that a mirror image of this chiral center cannotbe rotated back to completely overlap itself), and caffeine most definitely does not have a chiral center.
But there's so many hundreds if not thousands of other compounds in all these plants that could change how they affect your body or how the xanthines are absorbed. This makes arguing about caffeine composition a bit moot. None of the percentages of these other compounds will be marked on chocolatepackaging, and even for the same packaging, ingredients list, and nutrition info, the percentages of these compounds could fluctuate alot.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of scientific agreement on a) whether chocolate causes migraines for most migraine sufferers, and b) for those that chocolatedoes cause migraines for, which compound or compounds is causing it. Some say it may be from the caffeine, tyramine, or phenylethylamine. Caffeine is definitely lowered in the bean during fermentation so a longer fermented bean could be better for you if this is the cause, but no one I know writes their fermentation length on their packaging, except perhaps Claudio Corallo. Caffeine would also probably be higher in "longer bred" varieties like Criollo, but this could be subjective.
tyramine and phenylethylamine are such minor compounds in chocolate that I don't think anyone has studied how they differ in different varieties, origins, or fermentation lengths, and tyramine is found in so many other common foods like cheese, raspberries, and red wine that it would be hard to blame chocolate for upping your intake of this compound.
One things is for sure, the higher the percentage of cocoa solids in a bar, the more of these compounds they will have, but going from cacao percentage written on the packaging to cocoa solids is usually quite a puzzle since percentage is a sum of the cocoa solids and cocoa butter. There are a few posts on The Chocolate Life about how to attempt do this. I'd suggest you make a rough estimate of the cocoa solids of the brands that cause you problems vs. the ones that don't at the same cocoa percentage, and see if there's any correlation with migraine-causing ability.
You may want to check these sources:
Cephalalgia.1997 Dec;17(8):855-62;A double-blind provocative study of chocolate as a trigger of headache.
Marcus DA,Scharff L,Turk D,Gourley LM.
Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol.2003 Sep;91(3):233-40;Intolerance to dietary biogenic amines: a review.
Jansen SC,van Dusseldorp M,Bottema KC,Dubois AE.
Bletter, N. and D. Daly. 2006. " Cacao and its relatives in South America: An overview of taxonomy, ecology, biogeography, chemistry, and ethnobotany" in Cameron L. McNeil ed. Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, University Press of Florida.
Selamat malam Willy,
The fermentation is still done with "raw" cacao, it's just that the roasting step is left out, and some places like Big Tree try to control the fermentation process so that it never goes above 115 F/46 C. The taste is very different and much more "beany" or green than roasted chocolate. I saw "raw" in quotes because most "raw" cacao has gone well above the 115 F temp in fermentation unless it's extremely closely monitored.
Lightly processed chocolate can definitely have some benefits since it has higher levels of flavonoid antioxidants, but it's an acquired taste and there could be food born pathogen problems with it as well that hopefully the industry will soon resolve.
Apa kabar, WIlly?
Welcome to The Chocolate Life. Where in Indonesia are you? I have a friend in Sumatra who is growing cacao and wants to start making chocolate there. There are also a few growers/sellers in Bali you could talk to.
Good luck! Selamat tinggal!
