Over the Andes and into the Amazon

Well the good news is that Ned successfully gave birth to a melanger and safely delivered it to Henry. (Reference previous blog photo of Ned looking rather pregnant with his 25 lb. bundle of chocolate joy.) The bad news is that Henry's jars of peanut butter and nutella, lovingly packed by his mom with a promise by us to hand deliver it to Henry, did not make the TSA cut. Sorry Henry.

 

 

The drive over the Andes Mountains at 6ish on Tues. morning was spectacular. We drove into the clouds and went from an arid desert landscape to a lush tropical environment. This picture was taken as we left Quito. In the distance is a snow-covered active volcano.

It was jaw dropping beautiful to see the steep and narrow mountains with many, many waterfalls pouring from them and houses perched on the edges of cliffs.

 

The main roads in Ecuador are in great shape. The current president has put a lot of money into the infrastructure. Despite this, the harsh rains of the last season washed out many parts of the mountain roads. It made for some interesting transitions zipping along pristine asphalt to creeping along bumpy gravel roads. It was also one of the windiest road we've ever been on, like Highway One on steroids.

When we finally reached Tena it was a joy to see Henry waiting for us. (Note Henry's t-shirt! Nevada City Highway 49). This part of Ecuador, referred to as the Oriente, is wedged between the Andes Mountain Range on the Western side and the Amazon jungle on the East. It's one of the most remote parts of Ecuador. The population here is 80% Kichwan.

We had a long breakfast chat with Henry that lasted until about 1 pm! It was so enlightening to get the background on Henry's project and experience with the Peace Corp over the last 18 months.

We finally boarded a bus and headed for the village of Arosemena Tola. Henry gave us a tour of the "Centro de Acopio de Cacao Tsatsayacu" chocolate making facility. This is an association made up of 140 familes that grow cacao.

 

 

Thru several grants from the Europian Union and the National Government a physical plant was constructed. Tsatsayacu will now buy cacoa from the families, ferment it, dry it and make it into chocolate liquor (unsweetened chocolate). Tsatsayacu is already selling their chocolate liquor to several customers, mainly local bakers and caterers. They still have quite a few challenges...

such as getting certified, but, it's quite impressive to see what Henry and the association have accomplished in this time frame.

We spent the afternoon doing some experiments with the melanger. I think that Henry and David, the director, were impressed with the capabilities of this machine. In just two hours the liquor sample we tested was much smoother than the smoothest liquor they are able to produce on their present mill. Tomorrow we plan to view their whole process from bean roasting to liquor milling, and make an additional chocolate sample or two for later in the week.

Tonight we had a delicious dinner at a local restaurant and brainstormed about other projects we're hoping to work on with Henry.

Henry put us up at a small charming hostel. Ned and I have a little bungalow complete with our own bathroom! There's a creek running past and lots of yummy fruit hanging from nearby trees. As I write this we're listening to all the sounds of the Amazon. Two days on the road and we're exhausted, but I know we'll be dreaming of chocolate and waterfalls and tropical forests.

 

 

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It Takes a Village (or two) to Make Chocolate

Last Victorian Christmas, while selling our chocolate, a local family from Nevada City purchased some of our bars. They were particularly interested in our Ecuador bar since their son, Henry Harrison, was working as a Peace Corp Volunteer in Ecuador. After receiving the chocolate bar, Henry reached out to us via email with some questions about selecting machinery and learning more about the chocolate making process.

Henry, who has an Economics degree, is working in the village of Carlos Julio Arosemena Tola which is about three hours from Quito. This village grows their own cacao and has started making unsweetened chocolate from their own beans. Most cacao growers only grow the beans and don't process them into a finished product, which is a much more profitable enterprise. Kudos to Henry for taking the cacao growing process one step further!

 

Over the past year, we have continued our on-line discussion with Henry. We ultimately decided that the best way to teach someone and share with them best practices is via hands-on. So, we are now on our way to Ecuador to spend a week or so with Henry and the people of Arosemena Tola.

While there, Ned will be leading a workshop on making "sweet" chocolate as opposed to the unsweetened chocolate liquor that this village now makes. Unfortunately, they don't have the one piece of equipment needed to do this. As a result, Ned and I offered to hand carry a 25 lb. melanger to them.

 

 

 

 

Our plan is to travel "light". Okay as light as one possibly can with 4 backpacks.

Here's Ned with the melanger in the front backpack. We'll keep you posted how that goes via TSA and immigration. Should be quite interesting..

Yes, I got away with the lighter load.

Our plan is to arrive in Quito, stay in a youth hostel the first night, and then take a 5 a.m., 3 hour bus/shuttle to Carlos Julio Arosemena Tola.

Next posting hopefully we will have met up with Henry! See you near the equator.

 

 

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Visiting our Dominican Suppliers of Cacao - The Conacado Connection

Location: El Seibo, Dominican Republic

Making chocolate is a labor of love. Once we receive the cocoa beans from our suppliers we need to roast, winnow, grind, melange, temper, mould, and package the chocolate. But that is only part of the process. Growing the cacao, harvesting and cracking the pods, fermenting and drying the beans must happen first. We have a tremendous amount of appreciation for our suppliers for all this hard work that occurs in a very hot and humid climate. Most of the farmers live in very modest conditions and struggle to eek out a living. They rarely get a chance to taste the end chocolate product. It's our personal goal to meet each of our cocoa suppliers, thank them for their hard work and present them with a bar of chocolate.

Today we traveled to the Conacado Co-op in El Sebo. It was a special treat to have my sister and brother-in-law with us on this adventure. It was their first trip to the cacao source.

Also working on the farm was Blake, a Peace Corp worker. She's been there for 14 months helping them with their business and marketing.

 

 

Ned in front of the fermentation area.

Ned and Debi in the drying shed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doing the cut test to see if the beans have been fermented long enough.

One of the "cocoa dancers" flipping the beans to help the drying process. To fully appreciate this, the temperature was extremely hot and humid and he's in the baking sun fully dressed.

 

Ned and I giving some more of the workers a Cello Chocolate bar made with their beans.

In the field seeing the cacao growing on the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had an opportunity to see how they prepare "cocoa balls." This is coarseley ground cocoa nibs rolled into ball form to be grated and sweetened for hot chocolate.

 

Of course Linda and I had to taste them.

 

 

 

 

 

They prepared a beautiful, typical Dominican lunch for us.

 

 

We had rice with peas, chicken, a type of spaghetti and a vegetable salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ned especially enjoyed the cacao wine, which tasted like port.

 

They've invited Ned and I back to help them make chocolate. We are thinking of coming back next January. If we do, this will be our living quarters. We can't wait!!

 

 

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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.