The Night the Lights Went out in Guayaquil

Guayaquil, Ecuador

The last several days we've seen how cacao is grown, harvested, fermented and dried. Today was all about how it is brought to market and the logistics of preparing it for worldwide shipment. We visited the Transmar Group, one of the world's leading suppliers of cocoa products.

This plant was located in the industrial section of Guayaquil and was quite an eye opening experience. Nadia Rosales was our guide for the day. She gave us a great overview of the entire process and didn't hold back on anything. We saw truckloads of cacao beans being delivered from middlemen of small farmers. We were able to see how the beans were received and checked for moisture, quality, etc. I must admit I was a bit shocked to see jute bags ripped open and bags of beans being dumped onto the asphalt which was covered with diesel fuel, tar, oil and other heavy trucking material. Dang! I sure do appreciate that we work with quality growers like Vicente. Because of his reputation his beans are handled specially and are not subjected to this treatment. At the plant, we saw beans being dried, sorted, rebagged, fumigated for infestation (the organic beans being in the same facility!), and stored in their warehouse on pallets ready for shipment.

Ned and I are not big fans of the whole "raw" chocolate movement, simply because we know first hand how unsafe raw beans can be. They are exposed to animals, birds flying overhead (and often times unloading on them), and contaminants such as we saw today. Let's just say I feel a whole lot better about our roasted beans and the growers we work with.

My favorite part of the tour was the chocolate liquor tasting experience. (Liquor is the term used for ground roasted cocoa nibs, without the sugar added). It was so fun to blind taste cacao from different regions in Ecuador. We did this tasting in Transmar's lab lead by their official quality taster. We were all given sheets with different flavor identifiers such as cocoa, floral, fruit, nut, astringency, bitter, mould, spices, metalic, etc. We spent quite a lot of time going around the room and each individually sharing their flavor and aroma descriptions and ratings. We tasted about 7 or 8 different liquors. So fascinating!!!

It was mid afternoon by the time we left the plant. With chocolate liquor running through all our veins we were more than ready for lunch. Our group of 12 shared a last fun meal together over typical Ecuadorian food. I had chiva (goat) with plantains, and Ned had a spicy chicken dish. Others ordered such things as fried cheese balls, seafood soup, and a plantain and raisin pie - which tasted like a Mexican fruitcake. This was washed down with Sangria, of course!

Vicente took us to his office located in downtown Guayaquil, and Maria Fernandes, a chocolate maker from Venezuela, did a presentation to us about Venezuelan chocolaate. Let's just say that with the current political climate it is incredibly challenging to nearly impossible for local farmers to sell to the outside world. Mmmm - I wonder if Ned and I will be able to continue to receive Venezuelan cocoa beans. Stay tuned on that one.

Ned and I were still stuffed from lunch and wanted to get in some last minute shopping. We opted out of attending the continuing meeting at Camino Verde headquarters and hit one of the local "mercados" or marketplaces before they closed at 7. We had about a good half hour and thought that would give us enough time to pick up a couple of little momentos. The mercado is in a huge indoor building and is jammed packed - stuffed to the gills - with about a hundred little tiny vendors sharing their wares. No sooner had we begun our shopping and bargaining then "KABOOM" lightening and thunder hit and then a torrential downpour. And I mean a torrential downpour. A flash flood soon transpired, the streets were quickly becoming flooded and then the marketplace itself began to flood. Vendors were scrambling to get their precious merchandise off the floor or hung higher up before the water ruined their wares. Ned and I just pitched in and started moving lots and lots of alpaca blankets. We felt so sorry for these vendors! People's attempts at using push brooms to hold back the water seemed pretty futile.

After awhile we began to think about our own exit strategy. Every time we looked out of the building and into the street we could just see the water rising higher way past the high mark on some tires. Yikes! Suddenly after an especially loud thunder clap, all the electricity went out!! Babies started crying, women were screaming, car alarms were going off and chaos ensued. Ned and I (with the use of Ned's cell phone flashlight) made our way up to a second story floor that was for the most part vacant. I got a little nervous about being so isolated (I thought we were too easy a mark to get robbed) and decided we were better off with all the families in the flood zone. We eventually made it out of the building, stood under an overhang and continued to watch the water rise. Eventually the lights came back on and we decided that our best bet was to just brave the water and rain and walk back to the hotel. (Thank you google maps for working even though we didn't have any cell or internet connection!!!)

Sitting in our cozy little room now, showered and dried, I can look back now and see how silly we must have looked holding onto each other for dear life as we waded through the streets. The water was so high that we couldn't see pot holes, gutters, planter boxes, etc. After a few stumbles, (I don't even want to know what kind of stuff was floating in that water. Let's just say I'm so glad we got our typhoid and other shots) with our clothes drenched, we finally made it back to the hotel. At one point we thought about catching a taxi, but traffic was completely stopped. I think we would still be sitting in a taxi if we went that route!

What a way to end our South America adventures! We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Getting up before 4 am and hopefully arriving in SFO around 8 pm. This has been such a wonderful educational trip and I'm so glad we went. We so enjoyed spending time with the growers, researchers and scientists, brokers, fellow chocolate makers and distributors. It'll be so fun to share everything we've learned with our community back home - and, of course, we hope to continue to improve and make the best chocolate for Nevada County!

Cello Chocolate Comes Full Circle

Location: Camino Verde Plantation, Balao, Ecuador

We are a handcraft bean to bar chocolate company, which means we take cacao beans and turn them into chocolate. It involves a lot of hard work for both the farmer and the chocolate maker.

It takes a dedicated person to be a cacao farmer. From extracting the wet, pulpy beans from these exotic pods hanging off a tree trunk to the fermenting and drying process so many variables can go wrong. Vicente, the owner of Camino Verde, is in a class of his own. He applies both a scientific exactness and a passion to this craft.

Today we got an overview of Camino Verde's post harvest process. Most farmers use a box step system for fermentation and then dry the beans on a concrete slab. Vicente has a very different approach. He allowed us to enter his inner sanctum, behind a guarded locked gate to see it first hand. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of this process so you'll have to bear with me as I describe it. The fermentation process takes place in bags, on pallets, under special plastic wrap. All timing is controlled by monitoring the temperature rather than the typical date time table of 5 to 7 days. He also inoculates the beans several times during the fermentation process with microorganisms that were drained from the pulp of the cacao. Once fermented they are then transferred to a special drying bed, made of wood and not the typical concrete pad. I could go on forever explaining the intricate nuances of why Vicente does what he does. When I get home, buy me a drink and I'll go on forever. For tonight, just trust me that it's very unusual, complicated and unique with the end result being that Camino Verde produces one of the best cacao beans ever.

It doesn't matter how wonderful these beans are if the chocolate maker isn't equally skilled at his craft. Again, there are so many variables that could go horribly wrong during the roasting, conching or tempering process.

Which brings me back to today. The farmer and the chocolate maker are two equally important parts of the process in bringing a chocolate bar to market and yet very rarely do the two ever meet. Working on a cacao farm is hard, physical work. I wonder how often a farmer has thought about his precious bean, where it is being shipped, and if his work and toil has been appreciated.

And the chocolate maker, what must he be thinking? As he labors over this bean, turning it into a liquid form and then into a bar, with just the right amount of sweetness and coaxing out the flavor complexities, surely he imagines the farmer and the land and the origin of this special little bean. Ned and I have had many, many discussions imaging the people that have produced these beans.

And so today, after traveling several thousand miles back to its origin, a bean was returned home and the circle was completed. Three separate chocolate makers presented their chocolate bars, specially made with the Camino Verde bean, to the actual farmer and workers. It was incredibly moving and emotional for everyone.
Ned had big tears in his eyes and got a bit choked up as he presented Cello Chocolate's Ecuador bar to two of the workers. Ironically, of our six single origin bars the Ecuador bar is Ned's favorite so this had an extra special meaning to him. The workers were also very moved to receive this gift, feel appreciated and be able to taste the fruits of their labor. (The press was there to document the event and Vicente has promised to send me the article when it is published).

Ned and I make chocolate because it's fun, tastes good and keeps us connected to our local community. Today, our local community got a little bit bigger and included some special people at Camino Verde, Ecuador.

First Day at Camino Verde

Location: Manso Hotel, Guayaquil, Ecuador

I knew that when we checked into this charming hotel in the wee hours of the morning that it was pretty cool, but I didn't appreciate just how unique it was until this morning. It's a boutique hotel overlooking the Rio Guayas located in the main hub of the city. The communal area has a balcony with a hammock, charming inner courtyard, small dining area for breakfast and is decorated local artisan paintings and crafts. It feels homey, yet very European.

We met up with several folks from Dandelion Chocolate (a handcrafted bean to bar chocolate company located in San Francisco), a young woman originally from Venezuela who is interested in beginning a cacao farm, a French woman who teaches, consults and is an author about all things chocolate, and of course continued to be with Sam of Videri Chocolate and Gino, our broker. In total there were 11 of us. The next couple of days we will be spending time at the Camino Verde Estate, and getting a really thorough overview of their cacao production and unique post harvest techniques. All three of the chocolate makers on this tour (Cello Chocolate, Videri, and Dandelion) buy their beans from the Camino Verde farm and we were all super interested and excited to get a first hand overview.

Our host the next couple of days is Vicente Norero of Camino Verde. After introductions over breakfast (I had a quinoa, carrot and onion patty and a banana) we began the 2 hour drive to Balao, where Camino Verde Plantation resides. This estate is the antithesis of everything we saw in Trinidad. It is about 1000 acres and is run like clockwork. Vicente is an economist at heart (he studied at the Wharton School of Business), speaks several languages, and is obsessed with running the most efficient and environmentally friendly farm as possible.

Camino Verde also runs an organic banana plantation that produces close to 2 trailer loads of bananas a day! Vicente gave us a very thorough review of this process. We saw bananas being harvested, washed and packaged. Spent time in the field with demonstrations on how bananas are wrapped and trimmed. We also learned about his in-depth composting procedure, including how he grows his own micro-organisms.
He also created a very sophisticated watering system. Pretty impressive!

After a long car ride and spending quite a lot of time on the banana production, we had worked up an appetite. Vicente was a gracious host and served us an amazing meal. We had fried plantains that we smothered in a spicy sauce, ceviche made with the freshest shrimp ever and a rice dish. DELISH!! After this amazing meal and basically functioning on very little sleep I was ready for a siesta. Vicente had other plans...

We spent the next 4 hours or so getting a very thorough overview of the cacao portion of the plantation. We visited several different fields, each with different varieties of cacao. Vicente's knowledge of EVERYTHING cacao is unlimited. From seedling to harvest it was like drinking from a fire hose taking in all the information he gave us. We also tasted many different varieties of cacao fresh off the tree. All the chocolate makers had brought our bars made from the Camino Verde beans. At about 5ish we all piled into Vicente's field office and had a tasting. It was awesome to taste and compare our bars. They were all so good, each one uniquely different. Vicente really enjoyed the cinnamon flavor that came through our Ecuador bar. It was exactly one of the reasons this single origin is Ned's favorite. You can't imagine how cool it is to travel thousands of miles and have our chocolate tasted by the farmer that grew the cacao. What a thrill!!

By the time we all piled back into the cars and reached the hotel (after several stops for adult libations at roadside stands along the way) we were exhausted. Of course, that didn't stop us from rallying the troops and venturing out to a local restaurant. It was so much fun dining outside, sharing pitchers of sangria with everyone, while sharing all our dishes. Greg had us in stitches with his stories. Good times!

Two of Trinidad's Finest

Location: Gran Couva & Maracas Beach

We started the day having breakfast al fresco overlooking the Gulf of Paria. We ate at the Breakfast Shed, which in reality is neither a shed nor a traditional breakfast restaurant. It's more like a market place with different stalls serving up various dishes. Ned followed Gino and did one of those point and "I'll have what he's having" kind of thing. He ended up with a salted fish salad, some kind of thick bread and a green salad (which he didn't eat given his experience eating salad on our last trip to Belize).
I enlisted Sarah's help and ended up with a onion-pepper egg scramble, fried plantains, cooked pumpkin and "fry bake" a thick fried bread. Let's just say my choice was the better option, especially since Ned seemed to eat more of my breakfast than his. This was all washed down with the typical instant Nescafe. Yes, the irony does not allude me that Trinidad grows great coffee and yet Nescafe seems to turn up at most of our breakfasts.

A big cocoa adventure for the day was heading towards Central Trinidad and visiting the famous San Juan Cocoa Estate. The Estate is located in the Gran Couva area and is 1000 acres in size. It is the largest and oldest cocoa Estate in Trinidad. It was established in 1870 by the Agostini family and has operated continuously ever since. It is nearly impossible to obtain their cocoa beans since their current production is exclusively purchased by Valrhona Chocolate of France.

We met with Mr. Solomon and he gave us a personal tour and overview of their operation. Spending time at this cocoa estate one feels as if they have stepped back in time. When we first arrived we drove past the cabins where the workers originally lived and still do to this day. It's definitely a working estate, but has had very little improvements for the past century. We were fortunate to see cocoa beans fermenting and drying in progress. They use a traditional box fermentation method, covered in banana leaves. Mr. Solomon pulled back the leaves and we dove our hands down into the slimy mess. It is really warm, smells quite yeasty, and reminded me of that old Halloween game where you stick your hand in a bag or bowl of peeled grapes and have to guess what it was. Yeah, slimy, warm, yeasty and not real sterile.

The next step was seeing the fermented beans laid out to sun dry. I was delighted to see they had a "cocoa dancer" or young man walking thru the beans, in his bare feet, and flipping the beans over. Quite impressive! The beans can take anywhere from 4 to 6 days to dry, depending on the weather.

The dried beans are then taken to a shed where they are run through a polisher, with a slight bit of surface water added, and then air dried again. Another worker, named Tobago, was raking the dried beans. It's hard to believe these very highly prized beans are processed in such an antiquated facility whose method hasn't changed much in the last hundred years.

Ned's favorite piece of equipment was built in 1901 and made of wood. Its function is to sort the beans by size. To me it looked like a huge bingo bin, where the balls are being tossed all around. As the beans progress through the spiral, the screen gets wider so that the smallest beans are removed first and then the largest beans are the last to come out. Eventually all the beans are dropped into bags and sorted according to size.

The real beauty of this estate is seeing their massive grounds of cacao groves. We piled in the back of Mr. Solomon's pick up and he drove us through a small portion of these groves. Dang the most beautifully pruned and maintained cocoa fields I've seen yet. The cocoa pods are humungous and look like large colorful footballs hanging from the trees, If I didn't know better I'd swear someone had come by that morning and individually polished each and every pod. As we were jostled along in the back of the pick-up I kept singing in my head that Alice In Wonderland song, "Painting the Roses Red."

It was awesome to get a close up view of the cacao, the pond and the grounds. I'll never get tired of eating fresh cacao picked from a tree with it's sweet passion fruit, banana kind of flavor. Yum!!

Mr. Solomon, a really sweet elderly gentlemen, is the overseer of the production and has worked on a cacao plantation since he was 16. He very kindly invited us into his modest home, served us much appreciated glasses of crisp, cool water and entertained us with his stories and experiences. He very sweetly gave me a book about the history of the villages in Trinidad. I told him that it was just a loan since I vowed to return one day.

By this time we were all pretty drenched from the hot blazing sun and feeling a little play time was in order. Sarah, again the world's best ever guide, driver, and partner in crime, drove us to the northern area of Trinidad. I really enjoyed seeing more of the towns and countryside, but the highlight was definitely driving over the Northern Mountain range and looking down on Maracas Bay. Simply stunning!! We finally reached one of the best beaches that Trinidad has to offer. Soft sandy beach, warm water, perfect body surfing waves and the trade winds blowing through the palm trees. We swam, dove, splashed, and played around in the water for a much appreciated fun afternoon. For the record Sam wins the prize for best body surfer. Dang, can that boy ride a wave!!

Before we came, Gino sent us a link to an Andrew Zimmern YouTube of things to eat in Trinidad. We pretty much nailed everything on the list and last up (for us) was Richard's Bake & Shark. Gino swears by it! We all ordered these fried shark pieces put on a fry bread and then loaded them up with stuff from the most awesome condiment bar. Pepper sauces, mango salad, cucumbers, pineapple, tamarind, were just some of the things one could pile on high. The guys washed their Bake & Shark's down with beer, while I kept the tropical vibe and went with the rum punch.

All in all I'd say we had a pretty amazing day and definitely enjoyed two of the finest experiences that Trinidad has to offer. I'm sad this is our last night in Trinidad and hope to come back and visit this country's other island, Tobago. Ned, Gino and Sarah are all working on meeting up in January at the San Juan Estate to do some harvesting. Ned and Sam are hoping to work in exchange for some cocoa beans. Mmmm. wonder if I could hang out in Tobago while Ned worked??? Just a thought...

Cocoa Connections

Location: Trinidad - god knows where.

One of the things I love best about chocolate is all the connections you make. Chocolate really is a universal language that connects us to past civilizations, transcends cultural barriers and brings a variety of people with different skill sets together. Today was a perfect case in point.

Our amazing guide and fearless leader Sarah once again put together an exceptional day. (I could write a whole blog about Sarah alone. She has a Masters Degree in Germ Plasm specifically dealing with chili peppers, speaks several languages, is well traveled and has the most delightful and upbeat personality. Not to mention she is so brilliant. Yeah, I'm a little in love with Sarah...) Our first meeting today was with Davinan Ramnath of the Ministry of Food Production. He spent the better part of the morning giving us an overview of the history of cocoa in Trinidad and the Ministry's current role. Cocoa production in Trinidad is declining at an alarming rate mainly due to the spectacular success of the energy business in the country. (Trinidad is only 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela). Trinidad has moved from a agricultural society to an energy and finance industry and as a result there is very few laborers available to work in the fields. At its height, Trinidad produced 350,000 tons of cacao a year and is currently shipping 700 tons. Approximately, 75,000 to a 100,000 acres of cacao estates are abandoned. Wowza. The Ministry's role is trying to help farmers develop standards and best practices and obtain various certifications. Also at the meeting were two cocoa farmers, Dr. Liz Johnson, who has a doctorate in Crop Science and Biotechnology and a masters degree in Agronomy, and Mario Alfonso a retired bank manager. What a great spirited discussion between all of us! We had the cocoa farmers, the cocoa broker, the chocolate makers and the government agency helping farmers improve their crops. We all want the same thing, which is to produce great chocolate from consistent cocoa beans, but each of us has our own challenges.

The next stop was taking a field trip to see cacao harvesting and the beginning stages of fermenting the beans. It's one thing to see pictures of this, but it's another to experience it first hand. It was so cool to see the red, orange, yellow and green vibrant colored cocoa pods being split open and their slimy contents being scooped out. And how fantastic to just pick up a cocoa pod and suck the sweet pulp off the seeds. The heady aroma from the fermented beans reminded me of a winery or touring the Jack Daniels plant! Really amazing. Davina also showed us the different fermenting and drying techniques at their processing facility. So fascinating!!!

A side note and observation about Trinidad. Nothing gets accomplished going from A to Z. The best laid plans always seem to take a circuitous route. Case in point, after leaving the Government Processing Facility we were going to visit Liz and Mario's farms. However, we all ended up at Mario's house, with some alcohol sampling taking place, then everyone took a side trip to a street vendor for "doubles" and "alloo". YUM!! I could become addicted to these spicy treats. Finally we were off to the farms, which involved driving on dirt roads, over pot holes, through villages, up and down valleys and into the tropical forest. Liz's property is very mature and she has great plans one day to build a home there. We spent quite lot of time sampling more ripe cacao, eating passion fruit as it dripped all down our chins, trying out "portugals" a local version of tangerine, several wild pepper plants and fresh mace and nutmeg. Mario (who is a very gregarious soul of Portuguese descent and immediately picked up on me being Portuguese and therefore became my new best buddy), has a new farm. He planted thousands of trees that are now 5 to 8 years old. It was really interesting to see the juxtaposition of the two farms.

After another trip to Mario's house we finally returned to our lodgings. We decided that a trip back to the street vendors was the best way to go. This of course took place later, after several rum punches and beer. Tonight I agave the cow heel soup a try. Meh. Not my fave, a bit too gamey and gelatinous for my taste. I should have added one of the spicy sauces to it. Ned settled on corn soup. The doubles and alloo (a potato like pancake smothered in hot, spicy sauce) are much more my style.

I loved meeting all these different players in the local cocoa scene. Mario is so outgoing and dramatic, Liz is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about producing better foods, Sarah is our go to person for explaining everything Trinidadian, Sam is just friggin' hilarious, and Gino is completely good natured and easy going. Ned and i came to learn more about the origin of cocoa and feel blessed with meeting all these new friends. Lucky me.