Us:
We are a small family-owned cacao grower and chocolate maker on the island of Puerto Rico. At least one of our passions is, crafting dark chocolate from our own cacao trees. But without our trees and fruits, we would have probably never gotten into this business. So, for the purpose of this website this is what we do. Sometimes the unplanned things in life turn out to be the most enchanting.
We are a small family-owned cacao grower and chocolate maker on the island of Puerto Rico. At least one of our passions is, crafting dark chocolate from our own cacao trees. But without our trees and fruits, we would have probably never gotten into this business. So, for the purpose of this website this is what we do. Sometimes the unplanned things in life turn out to be the most enchanting.
We began with just a couple of cacao fruits.
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Our History:
Before the end of the last century, and as part of our agricultural business, we began to plant many species of fruit trees with the intention to create a sustainable forest that would produce food for humans and which would also become a cozy habitat for wildlife. The plan was to start a reforesting project that would, albeit at a very small scale, contribute to the enlargement of the undeveloped and protected land that comprises El Yunque National Forest and the entire Sierra de Luquillo mountain range, even at the private level. The emphasis on diversity was fueled by the desire for knowledge about trees and fruits, imagining the myriad of colors, tastes, shapes, remedies and other possible uses these could provide. It was also an issue of species representation in the creation of an heterogeneous forest ecosystem, together with genuine admiration and true enthusiasm towards the entire Kingdom Plantae. Within the assortment of trees planted, at first there was actually only one cacao tree, then there were three, and many more came later on. Initially and for some time, the intention to create a chocolate business was as non-existent as there was cacao fruit on the farm. |
Just a few years later, the miracle of nature decided to reward us with fruit, but at the same time giving us the responsibility to use it wisely. So there we were, with just a couple of beautiful cacao pods in our hands, among other fruits, not really knowing what to do, but ready to take on the challenge and do something with them. Then, as sometimes happens in stories when unexpected things take place, our road into experimentation with cacao and chocolate opened up before us, yet with many curves, mountains and boulders, thus preventing us from seeing too far into the future. At the fork of that road it was indeed unimaginable to conceive the reality of what would begin to take shape in the forthcoming years.
The immense intrigue and mystique that has always surrounded cacao, but particularly the fabrication of chocolate contributed strongly on our willingness to pursue the subject further on. At the beginning, we clearly had no idea what we were doing. Our first experiments yielded very poor results, with the effects of astringency showing all over the faces of those who dared try them. Based upon the simple idea of wanting to do things right, and in this case, on making a chocolate that would actually taste good, acceptable or even great, yet without intending to develop any business from it whatsoever, we accidentally embarked on a journey into a craftsmanship that was clearly for us an unknown universe. "Playing with chocolate", as we like to refer to such hobby-like work, slowly grew into something with more potential than expected or ever intended.
The slow process of trial and error was exacerbated by the fact that on our beautiful island-paradise the cacao industry had long been dead for many decades and was basically non-existent. This created a knowledge void locally on the topic of cacao cultivation, let alone chocolate-making, forcing us to jump into a thirsty search for information and "know how" regarding the processes of both industries. Specifically about bean fermentation and on the scientific process of making chocolate since cacao cultivation is really not that difficult in a tropical island like ours. The fact that no one else was doing this in Puerto Rico (making chocolate nor planting cacao trees, not to mention fermenting cacao seeds), made it all the more interesting to us, given the reality that almost all other tropical countries both neighboring and around the world had at the least a cacao industry of their own. For many a mysterious reason this was the situation regarding cacao and chocolate on the island at the beginning of the 21st Century, as incredible as this may sound.
Many books were bought by us, with a lot of time spent on the marvelous electronic web of information gathering as much data on the subject as possible, paying attention to any other additional tips flying around that we could point our ears to. But most importantly, it was the time-tested universal resources of practice and determination with trial and error, which eventually began to show us signs of progress. Many batches of poorly fermented seeds, as well as what to us was unacceptable chocolate were sacrificed as part of the learning process and for the sake of trying to reach the essence of what is considered by humans as good quality in taste, smell, appearance and overall savoriness.
Aided continuously by the opinions and honest feedback from others, our practicing with chocolate made us log many years of formulating. As our interest on cacao and chocolate grew, so did the desire and need to plant more cacao trees because the truth is, you can do very little with only a few trees. Particularly the art of fermentation will inevitably be difficult to master with small amounts of seeds, being this process crucial in the development of great taste and aroma within the seed.
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So, what started as a hobby around the year 2001, beginning with just a few cacao pods from our first-bearing trees, our chocolate-making endeavor steadily grew as a direct consequence of the demand of friends and customers, and of our intense love of the land, the trees, the fruits and the flowers. With time, accepting the challenge from nature became a rewarding entrepreneurial quest.
After years of developing our formulas and giving away lots of chocolate, we decided to launch the Loiza Dark brand in 2009, as the first organic chocolate made by the only local chocolate maker and commercial cacao grower on the island then. The introductory percentage was a 65% dark chocolate, which received immediate local acceptance. Now we also make 72%, 83%, 97%, a mixed origin 70%, white, milk and goat milk chocolates which are all available in bars and in one or two pound blocks or in small pieces, as well as in finished
products available for sale here.
The fact that our plantations are so small makes our chocolate a very unique product indeed.
We continue to expand our products line, moved by our desire to create delicious healthy snacks while taking advantage of the versatility of our beloved raw material: cacao.
Our product is made from bean to bar, or from tree to tablet, and we use only the finest organic ingredients to create an exquisite artisan chocolate made with love and inspired by nature.
So, what started as a hobby around the year 2001, beginning with just a few cacao pods from our first-bearing trees, our chocolate-making endeavor steadily grew as a direct consequence of the demand of friends and customers, and of our intense love of the land, the trees, the fruits and the flowers. With time, accepting the challenge from nature became a rewarding entrepreneurial quest.
After years of developing our formulas and giving away lots of chocolate, we decided to launch the Loiza Dark brand in 2009, as the first organic chocolate made by the only local chocolate maker and commercial cacao grower on the island then. The introductory percentage was a 65% dark chocolate, which received immediate local acceptance. Now we also make 72%, 83%, 97%, a mixed origin 70%, white, milk and goat milk chocolates which are all available in bars and in one or two pound blocks or in small pieces, as well as in finished
products available for sale here.
The fact that our plantations are so small makes our chocolate a very unique product indeed.
We continue to expand our products line, moved by our desire to create delicious healthy snacks while taking advantage of the versatility of our beloved raw material: cacao.
Our product is made from bean to bar, or from tree to tablet, and we use only the finest organic ingredients to create an exquisite artisan chocolate made with love and inspired by nature.
The Plantation:
Our cacao germ-plasm consists mostly of Tinitario and Forastero cacao seeds with some Criollo seeds. We grow our trees organically in two different farms, and this means we do not spray our trees with chemicals nor do we use chemical fertilizers to feed them. The farms are located one in the lowlands near sea level and the other one in the highlands at 1900 feet above sea level. The lowlands farm is on the river banks of the legendary Rio Grande de Loiza and the highlands farm is on the Sierra de Luquillo, home of the El Yunque National Forest - Natural Wonder of the World.
It is interesting to note that there are differences in the characteristics of the seeds from each farm. The cacao from the mountain farm has a more nutty flavor and the seeds tend to be larger in general, whereas the cacao from the plains carries a more fruity note with slightly smaller seeds. There is another subtle difference in the cacao pod itself that we have noticed from where it's grown; the cacao pod from the mountain has a nice shine in its color versus the more matte finish of the cacao from the lowlands. Clearly, the two very different types of soil and climates influence on these characteristics, since we have the same varieties of cacao planted on both farms.
Basically, we mix the cacao from both farms to make our chocolate. Sometimes there will be more cacao from one farm than from the other, so no two batches are the same. Since these farms still produce very small amounts of cacao we have the need to mix them together. Each year we plant more trees in each farm, so we expect an increase in cacao harvesting and chocolate production in the near future.
The cacao plantations at the farms are part of our ongoing carbon sequestration project to do our share in helping the environment and to produce food. The trees are planted not as mono-crops but as "food forests" in order to have a more heterogeneous forest ecosystem. This consists of having larger canopy trees and fruit trees to give shade to the cacao trees, including many other smaller fruit trees, a variety of bamboo species and other plants spaced throughout the forest. In this way the forest protects itself better from decease, hurricanes and plagues. At the same time it provides food, shade, shelter, biomass, erosion control and habitat for flora and fauna. By planting forests we are contributing to a global need: to harness excess carbon from the atmosphere and lock it up in the wood of trees.
After the harvest the cacao pods are opened with machetes, the fruit shell is recycled at the farm by incorporation in the soil as a permaculture practice, and all the seeds and pulp are taken from the fruit. At this stage we collect all of the sweet juice from the pulp (and always drink some!), then this byproduct is diverted towards the production and experimentation of another product that we might have in the future, and that is cacao wine. We then ferment our seeds in cedar wood boxes for a number of days, depending on factors such as weather, temperature, amount of pulp in the seeds and type of seeds, as well as on the type of fermentation that we might be seeking at any particular time to complement our final product.
When the fermentation is complete the seeds are then dried under our beautiful Caribbean sun which delivers powerful ultraviolet rays that give the seeds a nice suntan and which are partly responsible for the development of great taste in the future chocolate. When the humidity inside the beans has been lowered to between 4% and 6%, they are then bagged to be delivered to our chocolate located factory half an hour away. Once at the factory they are then ready to be roasted. We use a drum roaster and work to develop all of the flavor and under-notes of the seeds while trying to maintain the integrity of the delicate raw material. We wait at least one hour for the seeds to cool down before going to the next step which is winnowing.
We winnow our roasted cacao seeds (or raw; not roasted but fermented seeds also if desired) in highly specialized equipment made for this task. Here the seeds are crushed into cacao nibs together with the husk. The machine then separates the husk from the nibs. The cacao nibs are left clean and ready to grind into cacao liquor while the husk and fines are bagged to be recycled as garden mulch, for making soaps, candles or bought by the cosmetics industry. Our cacao is completely stone ground using granite rollers to maintain that great taste which characterizes such process and equipment.
For the moment,
eat chocolate and have a great day.
See you soon!