Tom

yes, i do buy beans from Daintree and carry credits of source on my label. As you'll appreciate for commercial confidentiality reasons i can't say much more. But glad you enjoyed the bars ,Vanuatu beans have improved greatly over the last year. Currently Bougainville & Solomon the most popular alas i won't have more Bougainville Beans till Sept

Hi Tom,

So gladyou got to try and enjoy ourchocolate! We've been trying to get it into Monty's in Brisbane. Any suggestions there? We've sent them samples but can't seem to get them on the phone.

Thanks,

Nat

Hi Tom,

Great! We look forward to hosting him. We'lldefinitely have at least 2cacao farm & chocolate factory tours and abean-to-bar chocolate making class in January, with possibly someadditional mini classes. Just tellyour mate to keep an eye on http://madrechocolate.com/Classes.html and we'll post classes usually 1-2 months ahead.

Tx Tom.....sharing this with fellow chocophiles..."The flavour of the chocolate is pretty good and typical of the Samoan origin, full chocolate note with hints of nuts and honey, you will also find it will start to develope some fruity notes as the chocolate ages over the next three weeks or so. Quite an edible chocolate! The raw note in there and extra bitterness from the small beans could be easily masked by formulating as a dark milk chocolate."

Since then we have fermented longer (6-7 Nights), turned the fermenting beans daily in the latter half of fermentation, sorted the beans before exporting.....peter from dprawfoods.com thought the longer fermentation was disadvantageous? We now have Joshua bahen in WA making chocolate from Tavita;s cocoa beans here in Samoa carefully fermented 4 and 6 and 7 nights (3kg of each). Monsieur Truffe is also making chocolate this week from CSL (Cocoa Samoa Limited) beans again more carefully fermented for a longer duration (5-7 nights) by Talima.

Our growers are used to just making their own Koko Samoa paste, selling it locally in 250g cups for hot chocolate drinks, but are now having to consider obtaining the best chocolate precursors for premium export purposes.

Tx Tom

Hi Tom, You were the first to make chocolate from our SAMOA GOLD beans, thanks to Howard ( www.mamorchocolates.com ). Can you please send me your Testimonial/results to stevebrownsamoa@gmail.com as this same grower now has 5 tonne available..we inspected them yesterday after her organic certification follow-up visit....she's asking an additional $AUD5000/tonne through our Pacific Distributor, Richard David at www.kokosamoainternational.com and this is the price increase we want our growers to receive. Then, and only then, will we be able to produce more premium beans to make some of the best chocolate thru chocolatemakers like yourself. If you know of anybody keen to purchase 10 tonnes of PREMIUM SAMOA GOLD cocoa beans, they are now available. First come first served. And let me take this opportunity to thank you Tom..can we send you another sample as we have altered the fermentation technique to improve the quality even more? Cheers, Steve

Hi Tom, Yes you got one of my best beans which happen to have very less butter content but the aroma. We are fighting again this year with too much rain and the wind.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your comment! Nice to hear from you. I would love to hear more about your chocolate makingexperiences. By the way: I did not taste an Australian bean-to-bar chocolate so far....

Chocolove, Vera

Hi Tom,

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply to you. Any tips you have for me would be excellent. I have never made chocolate before. My daughter has a rare condition and can't have dairy so i am on a mission to make dairy-free chocolate. There is more and more in the shops but i love chocolate so thought it would be a fun challenge for me. I have ordered a melanger grinder which should arrive in the next week or two. I am sure i will have to taste a lot of bad chocolate before i get good at it but i will let you know how i go :)

Made a raspberry and cacao ice block and its surprisingly good. Needs a few tweaks here and there but its definitely on the correct track to be a special.

Try frozen banana (LadyFingers), pomegranate juice and a couple of tablespoons of cacao powder as a smoothie in the morning. I love it. Always raises the mood.