How’s everybody doing today? Hope you all had a great day yesterday (Valentine’s Day)! Have you been enjoying my posts about our Caribbean adventures (click here, here, here)? I hope so! I know you will like this one. Before we go into the dreamy world of cacao & chocolates… I want to remind you all about the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals eCourse, which closes enrollment on the 22nd of Feb. and also… if you haven’t… check this out!
For this post… I asked my father-in-law, Dave, if he would like to write it up because there was so much to share, but I was way too busy taking pictures to really pay attention to everything that was being said. Plus, when I did pay attention… it was hard to understand the man because of his Swiss accent. So, I am going to tell you all about it through pictures while Dave shares through words!
Speaking of pictures… I have TOO many to decide what to share with you that I’ve decided to do another post with just pictures and a few words here & there. I will share some here, but will be sharing more on the next post! UPDATE: More pictures here!!
All I need to say about this place is… awesome, beautiful, wild and I am spoiled for life because you can’t find chocolate with all that delicious buttery fat anywhere!
Oh man! I really want some right now with coconuts or cacao nibs!
WARNING: You will find yourself very hungry for some REAL, buttery fat chocolates :o)
The CHOCORART Chocolate Tour
By David Beard
A chocolate tour in Costa Rica! Believe me this is no trip to Wonka World with umpah lumpas and crazy machinery…. No, a trip to Chocorart is a step back into a mom and pop size cacao plantation and chocolate making enterprise.
Chocorart is located 4 miles from Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. A Swiss couple, Marcos and Claudia have handled the operation of the chocolate production themselves for the last 20 years. The tour is definitely an up close and personal look at how chocolate is made from tree to treat.
Marcos and Claudia at work making their chocolates.
Our little adventure started with a short bicycle ride from our cabin. A small group of about 15 of us had our choice of narration in Spanish, English, French or German. English was common to all and Marcos led us along a path through the jungle. Yes, jungle and no manicured rows of cacao trees with machines to harvest. We walked through the rain forest as Marcos gave us a history of the dreaded fungus that still attacks tress and fruit today. With his trusty machete he show us termites, carpenter ants, poison dart frogs and pointed out several species of plants (i.e. ginger, lemon grass, peppercorn) all sharing the rainforest with cacao trees.
Well, back to cacao plants. The ripened fruit, when opened, reveals 20 to 30 seeds cover with a slimy white pulp that is delicious to eat; in fact this is how the cacao plant was first used until the Mayan Indians took the seed and started making a chocolate drink. Harvest time for most cacao is from September through December. But Marcos found a few cacaos to harvest and left them beside the path to pick up later with a wheel barrel. (Pretty high tech right?!)
The Chocorart operation is all organic, using only compost to fertilize young plants and no insecticides. The forest has a mix of huge 60 foot trees providing a mixed canopy affect along with 400 or so smaller cacao trees and many other plants. The cacao plants flourish in a 50% sun 50% shade type of environment, usually at 1000 to 1500 feet above sea level and plenty of moisture.
The tall trees on the cacao plantation… over 60 feet!
Next, the secret to infusing flavor and changing the bitterness of the cacao seed comes from the fermentation process. For six days the sweet pulped laden seeds are allowed to ferment then laid in the sun to dry for about a week. Once dried the reddish brown nut is ready to be roasted or in some cases exported to other chocolate making companies.
Once roasted Marcos used a large rock to crack the seeds and separated the shells from the chocolate by letting the wind blow the shells away as the chocolate drops into a bowl. Next, the chocolate is ground up, mixed with cane sugar and cooked into a rich brown, delicious, spoonable syrup to enjoy. As it hardens, flavor can be added and then shaped into cigar size treats that Chocorart distributes locally. Marcos explains that once the bean is ground many companies extract the cocoa butter to be sold to cosmetic companies and replace it with other oils. Now that is other companies—-not Chocorart — you get the natural cacao butter and experience the rich flavor of semi sweet organic chocolate.
After the tour they served up delicious, rich hot chocolate and we left the place wearing chocolate moustaches. We also purchased plenty of chocolates to keep us happy for several weeks. We will remember this tour for a long time… how can we not?! We will never look at our standard chocolate bar the same way again.
Flavors: Plain, Coconut**, Coffee, Crunchy (Cocoa Nibs)**, Mint, Ginger**, Peanuts**, Orange & Vanilla**
(**Mare’s favorites)
This is part of Real Food Wednesday hosted this week @ Cheeseslave.
Hope you enjoyed the tour! You can look at more pictures here.
Marillyn & David!
Well done… you make a great team!
What an intriguing adventure! I love how close you guys got to the chocolate making process.
Hi, i just found your blog through kitchen stewardship…and i’m intrigued! not only am i interested in cooking and eating real food, but i also grew up in central america. my parents are missionaries in el salvador, and i was born there and lived there til i was twenty and got married. so i love seeing your pictures and reading the stories…it almost looks like home. i’ve been to costa rica and honduras more times than i remember. it’ll be fun visiting your blog! God bless you as you serve Him in Central America!
Me again…:) I almost forgot…the other thing that interests me about you and your blog is because i spent a couple months in belize (before i was married) at a home/school for deaf children. i was helping with domestics while learning asl. i haven’t found the opportunity yet to use it where i’m at, so i’m afraid i have lost most of it. but i have many friends who are deaf because of that experience in Belize, even though i have not seen them for years!
Wow! What a super awesome adventure!
Love the pictures! kind of a funny question but is that and ergo that you are carrying the babe in? If so I’ve never seen that particular one… did you cover it with another material or something?
Sounds like a lot of fun Mare! I want to eat all that yummy goodness!
Karen, was the deaf home/school you were at run by Mennonites in Spanish Outlook?
I’m glad I found your blog through Kitchen Stewardship! 🙂
Oh! Your making us so jealous, thanks for the comment on the almond joy smoothie, we realized that we had not put in any almonds! The flavor of the smoothie with the chocolate just reminded us of almond joy. We changed the name to coconut chocolate.We thought you could put in some almond milk and have your almond joy fix!
What a great adventure. Thanks Mr. Beard for the write up. These are real chocolate that I want to taste one day.
Kelly – Thanks!!!
Fresh Local & Best – Thank you!
Karen – Thanks so much for stopping by! I am interested in knowing more about your upbringing in Central America. That is so awesome that you were a MK and lived all your life in El Salvador. Did you enjoy it?
Please tell me more about the deaf home/school in Belize. We will be close by that I would love to visit! Are they still there?
Jenn – THANKS!
Brittney – The carrier is called an Action Baby Carrier. It’s very much like the Ergo with a few exceptions. I am doing a review and giveaway on it… so keep your eyes on the blog! I LOVE LOVE their fabric choices! Wish Ergo had similar kinds.
Katie – Thank you! I know you would love the tour! How did you know about the deaf school?
Alison – Glad to have you here!
DeL Sisters – LOL!!! I think your smoothie sounds heavenly… I would simply add some chopped almonds and you will totally have your Almond Joy!!
Divina – Thank you! I do hope you will try some chocolates like these some day! I think you will :o)
Mare we have two students from Chiapus that were brought to us by a some Menonites. They brought a pamphlet from the deaf home/school. I looked the school up on the internet a couple months ago but I don’t remember it’s name. The only draw back was that they have some students from Guatemala and Guat. has it’s own sign language. right now I beleive they are being taught asl. So the kids are given a language and taught about jesus but when they go home the kids can’t comunicate with other guat. deaf. that’s why we officaly switched from asl to msl here.
Katie – If you can find the information and send it to me that would be awesome. I remember talking about moving 100% over to MSL when we are there. I’m sure it was a hard transition, but it will be very fruitful. How are you doing with the MSL?
The deaf institute where I lived at for two months was Cayo Deaf Institute. Yes, Katie, it is run by Mennonites from Spanish Lookout. I wonder if your two students that they brought over used to live at CDI (Cayo Deaf Institute).
The school has changed a lot since I left almost six years ago, and all the management has changed. I don’t know many of the people that work there anymore. I do know there are a lot of the same children there though. I have looked up CDI on the internet, but haven’t found much other than news articles. I thought they had a website, but last time I searched, I couldn’t find it. If you need info on how to find it and how to contact them, I can call one of my friends who married one of the directors. Although they are no longer involved with CDI, I’m sure they would have the contact info. Or maybe Katie has what you need. Let me know.
I loved growing up in El Salvador! It was home! 🙂 I love the food, the people, the culture, the language, the trees and flowers, the warm weather, the volcanos, etc. I tend to look back with much nostalgia. But I don’t desire to live there again. I feel a safety in the U.S. that I never did there. I don’t miss feeling fear. I certainly stuck out down there, being a white girl. We often had armed robberies in our home, including four in seven months time when I was four years old. My dad was kidnapped overnight when I was eight. (My mom wrote a book about that–Deliver the Ransom Alone.) And once there was a threat to kidnap me, my brother or my dad. So stuff like that I do not miss! But I do miss my family and my friends!
Thank you for asking. I’m sorry this got so long-winded!
Mare, MSL is going good. The transition is going well. It wasn’t really that hard, since we have been having classes once or twice a week since you and Jon were here. Our biggest problem now is that there aren’t more fluent signers here so our language is sort of at a stand still. Alisha and I hung out with Lonnie, Michelle, Carlos and all their kids today. It was great to see them all. We learned a few new signs to incorporate too! Did you ever get to meet any Deaf in CR and learn a little CR sign? The girls are all doing good and still talk about you.
Karen, our kids weren’t going to CDI. But when the two couples visited us and brought Jamie and Esmeralda they brought a flyer for the school. It’s always cool to hear about other christian deaf schools. If you’re ever in San Diego and want to visit our school we’re just an hour or so south of the boarder.ranchosordomudo.org Here’s the website for CDI,
cdi-beliz.net
I wish I could visit!
I am so jealous that you guys got to have some real authentic chocolate! I adore good chocolate too. That must have been amazing 🙂