Tour Updates

This is pretty much just an update on our tour. The following appeared in the local newspaper which was written by yours truly and their are some links at the end that point to a couple other articles that others have written. Enjoy: If you have shopped at Super Gourmet specialty food store in Bocas town, you may have noticed some of the many chocolate products available. You can find anything from homemade brownies and cakes to roasted cacao nibs and handmade dark chocolate fudge. You might have also noticed the growing number of companies or organizations making this chocolate. You can find Oreba Chocolate produced by a local indigenous community, Dorothy's Own chocolate products made by an expat local who supports indigenous farmers and the Bocas Caribbean Chocolate Company, which makes delicious refined chocolate bars among other. And this is all just in the Super Gourmet. Walking down the street and into Starfish Coffee, you can find ground cacao liqueur balls for sale from various local farmers along with many books about what makes a good chocolate. Even further down the street, the Buena Vista Bar & Grill restaurant offers delicious goodies made from the Cerutti Family Chocolate farm, Green Acres. If you're the adventurous type, you can even take a walk to the Up on the Hill shop on Isla Bastimentos where you can find organic homemade chocolate coconut balls, among other products. It seems that Bocas has quietly become a small chocolate and cacao haven and for good reason. We are surrounded by it. If walk into the mountains of Almirante or pretty much anywhere in the Bocas archipelago you will encounter a large amount of cacao trees which produce the fruit that is then turned into chocolate. If you came to the island by bus from the Costa Rica border or over the mountains from David, you passed hundreds of thousands of cacao trees and most likely didn't realize it. Don't worry if you feel like you missed a big sign that said “Cacao Tree Here.” They're just not that obvious. The trees come in all shapes and sizes as do the fruits and that can make them hard to spot. Also, the fact that the trees grow within the jungle makes them easy to miss. In fact, almost all the cacao in Bocas is shade-grown. Cacao trees need filtered rather than direct sunlight to properly and generously produce. Young, healthy cacao trees Árboles jóvenes y saludables I'm not an expert on cacao or chocolate production by any means, but living in a cacao-producing indigenous community as a Peace Corps volunteer, I have learned a lot in the past year. Whether it be from the Peace Corps cacao training workshops, working in the farms with community members, or just talking to others in the chocolate industry, I can honestly say that I learn something new every day. The first week I arrived in my community I had no idea chocolate came from a fruit. Fast forward to today and you can find me grafting cacao trees with local farmers to increase yield. And from what I have seen, there is an endless amount that can be learned about cacao and chocolate at every level of production. Some say it is like wine-making in a way – as every slight variation in temperature, location, fermenting process, drying process, and production process will change the final outcome of the product. Those who read the cover story in the April 2011 issue of the Bocas Breeze already know a little about me and the project that I'm working on. Simply put, working as a volunteer in the Peace Corps I have used my business background to help the chocolate artisan group put together a native-style chocolate tour that takes tourists through the indigenous farms and surrounding jungle to explain the entire process of turning organic cacao into simple chocolate. Along the way there are always animals, such as sloths and parrots, and when we arrive at the top of the mountain we give a traditional chocolate-making demonstration where you get to taste dark chocolate that was made right in front of you on a grinding stone. In the short time since we started this chocolate tour, we have been contacted by various tour operators and are now even listed in guidebooks as one of the top things to see and do in Bocas.

http://gocentralamerica.about.com/od/panamaguide/fr/Bocas-del-Toro-Chocolate-Tour.htm

http://www.samanthalowe.com/travel/?p=909

http://www.facebook.com/Orebachocolate

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g304171-d2085833-Reviews-Oreba_Chocolate_Tour-Bocas_Town_Isla_Colon_Bocas_del_Toro.html

http://www.thebocasbreeze.com/previous-issues/april-abril-2011-volume-8.shtml