Day 3

Another cocao-fuelled day!!

Our day started  off at a local chocolate factory – Itacare’ Chocolates. Here, under the entrepreneurship of Diana (the owner), Itacare’ Chocolates is now one of the only sites in Bahia which harvests cocoa, processes it and makes chocolate.

Diana the owner of Itacare' Chocolates

The finished product

 MAP buddies

 Group photo outside the factory

It was fascinating to see the whole process happen under one roof. From picking cocoa pods from their farm fields to taking out the seeds, fermenting, drying, roasting, to de-shelling of the cocoa seeds, turning into liquor, mixing with cocoa butter, refining, tempering and finally molding. Bean to bar under one roof!

Cocoa pod juggling - harvesting

Drying

Processing

Mouding

Nothing of the cocoa pods is wasted. Diana’s facility also juiced the cocoa pulp found in the pods to make a delicious sweet and thick drink known as cocoa honey.

Cocoa honey drank the traditional way

Ready to sell cocoa honey

In the afternoon we had some 101 lessons with Stefan on cocoa breeding. Stefan and his team are working on some fantastic research with the aim of breeding cocoa plants which are more resistant to disease and more productive. Disease is a huge problem for cocoa farmers – in Brazil the most destructive being what is known as “witch’s broom”. Stefan’s research will eventually help farmers use types of cocoa which are better for them as well as beneficial to the chocolate industry.

Stefan

Diseased cocoa pods with "witch's broom" and black pod. This is huge challenge for farmers in Brazil

Breeding lessons 101

Stefan's greenhouse

We even tried our hand at manual pollination – one of the techniques used for cross-breeding cocoa.

Our very own pollination kits

Brad pollinating a tree