Category Archives: growing cacao
Chocolatouring: enjoying the chocolate tours at Hotel Chocolat Boucan
Our time on St. Lucia was a week of utter chocolate bliss. As mentioned in the previous post, we had three glorious days at Hotel Chocolat Boucan, a boutique property owned by British chocolatier Hotel Chocolat and situated on the 140-acre Rabot Estate, the island’s longest-producing cacao plantation, operational since 1745. We toured the estate with cocoa production manager, Cuthbert Monroque, who explained that unlike nearby South America, the biggest problem his cacao-growing team has to deal with is rats. Yes, there are so many rats trying to bite into the sweet pulp of the ripening cocoa pods that Monroque has had to establish a rat-drowning regiment to keep things under control. This photo shows how a rat chewed his way into a pod and ate the flesh and cocoa beans from within. Another challenge for St. Lucian cocoa growers are mushroom spores, which spread the fungus that has been destroying some of the crop. As Rabot Estate is an organic property, no pesticides or fungicides are used. The resort offers a “Tree to Bean” tour as well as a “Bean to Bar” tour to help chocolate lovers understand how cacao is grown and how the beans are harvested, cleaned, fermented, dried, and processed to make chocolate. We grafted seedlings and put our name on them so that we could return in future and see the cacao tree that we helped create. Cuthbert makes a special tea that he uses to fertilize the seedlings, and that, combined with a special manure mixture help make the cacao trees strong and healthy. Grafting the seedlings helps reduce the time it takes for them to bear fruit. Without grafting it may take up to three years for a cacao tree to produce pods. With grafting, that period may be reduced to as little …
the launch of my chocolate journey of exploration
Hello chocolate lovers! We’re in the midst of a cold snap here in sunny, Manitoba, so it is no surprise that my thoughts are turning to warmer climates and my next big chocolate research trip. In less than two months, I’ll be in South America, visiting cacao plantations and chocolate makers who are making chocolate right at the source where the cacao is grown. But this post isn’t about that. It is about the trip that launched my interest and curiosity about where and how cocoa becomes chocolate. My first education in this process occurred in January, 2009, when I had the good fortune to spend a week in the Dominican Republic on the fabulous beach at Punta Cana. Lord, I love the Caribbean for its beautiful beaches and luxurious resorts. During our stay, we enjoyed a fabulous full-day tour with the Bavaro Runners which took us to a sugar cane plantation where we drank the rum made from the sugar cane, a tobacco plantation where we puffed on cigars rolled right before our eyes, a coffee plantation where we drank the dark delicious elixir made from locally grown coffee beans, and a cacao plantation where we learned that our precious chocolate originates in odd looking melon-like pods filled with very large seeds encased in an icky white goop. That is where it all began for me! I didn’t realize it at the time, but the seed for Chocolatour had been planted! So just how does cacao grow? I will get into that in detail when I visit Ecuador and  Peru, and actually talk to the farmers who grow the cacao. But let it be known that I will be forever grateful to that glorious day in the Dominican Republic, when I realized that the origins of chocolate have a …
