Cocoa Beans And Chocolate!

The annual Grenada chocolate festival was held in May. We had a blast finding out about how they cultivate and harvest the cocoa and then turn it into that delicious stuff!

Early in May we visited the town of Victoria on the north west coast of Grenada. We met many friendly people along the way who helped us learn all about the local culture and how they live - a very exciting day for us.

We walked up the valley on a narrow road - Diamond Street - about 1 km into the jungle, and saw many spice trees and fruit trees along the way. Then we arrived at the Diamond Street Chocolate Factory. They make "Jouvay" brand chocolate there.

We had a nice lady join us for the walk as our tour guide, and she pointed out many things along the way. The nice tour guide is on the right in this photo, along with her best friend who works in the Chocolate Factory. Notice the "tasting" bowls in the background.... yes, I had to be held back from over-indulging...

We took a tour of the local cocoa plantation and then the inside of the chocolate factory.

Our chocolate factory rep broke open a cocoa pod between two rocks and this is what the inside of a cocoa pod looks like - it is filled with soft, wet, slippery white pockets that are easy to pull out and put in your mouth to taste the natural sweet "fruit" flavour with a hint of chocolate coming through. It was odd to taste the earthy chocolate flavour with the natural sweet fruit taste of the pod pockets. It is these pockets that are fermented (dried) and become cocoa beans. After we had sucked off the natural flavours they had a "spongy" feel to them. There are about 40 of these in each pod. They are dried in the sun on big racks.

There are many colours of cocoa pods, and the cocoa tastes a bit different from each one - the environment has an impact on the taste of cocoa produced as fruit trees planted along with the cocoa trees will pollinate the cocoa and "colour" the flavour. Note to self.... it is therefore important to taste as many different chocolates produced all over the world....

A sorting machine is used to sort the sizes of cocoa beans when they are in full operation - from large to small beans. They also have an old manual sorting process that they use for demos and also when the production cycle slows down. The ladies in this photo are manually separating the non-perfect cocoa beans after they have been dried. The good ones go into a large bag at the far end of the line, and are then fed into a baking machine in the factory. The screen is for filtering beans from the small dried flakes and bits of shell on the outside of the beans The bag is 90 pounds when full.

The baking process is very similar to what they do for coffee beans. Once they have been baked and the beans are soft and warm, they go into a crusher. The wet cocoa mush is then mixed with cocoa butter, sugar and milk depending on what is being made that day. Vats hold filtered liquid chocolate after it has sugar and butter added - the finished chocolate bars are made from this liquid.

After our visit at the Chocolate Factory, we were invited into the front yard of a lady's home where she was making chocolate balls. She used crushed raw cocoa beans. The cocoa nuts have moisture inside even after they are dried, and when crushed will form into a paste. She used a hand grinder - see photo. She rolled the paste into balls with her hands and put them in the ice cube trays to be refrigerated and then later to be wrapped individually in plastic wrap. She said they use it to make tea by putting boiling water in a cup, let is steep (and melt), then strain away the "chafe" and add cream and sugar to taste. We ate some of the raw stuff (she handed it to us rather than finish rolling) and it was good but quite bitter - 100% fresh cocoa. A fun and interesting visit with nice people.

The chocolate factory site in Victoria has a very old structure created by the French in 1774 when they were in possession of Grenada. There are remnants of an old monastery, rum distillery and aqueduct built for moving spring water from the mountain top to the former sugar cane plantation there. You can see the boiler opening where sugar cane was crushed and boiled and created molasses for the rum distillery. The top of the aqueduct runs off into the distance before it turns right and up into the jungle.

We also attended several fun events during the festival including cooking with dark chocolate and dark chocolate tastings - always 70% cocoa. We made chocolate tarts and chicken stew with a chocolate / curry sauce. The cooking event was an eye-opener for me as it was the first time that I added raw chicken chunks into a pot after the oil, spices, dark chocolate, and vegetables were already in there. Oil and curry heated up first and then potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, green beans and green onion tops to become one before adding in the chicken ... In the end it was delicious!

The chocolate tasting event was attended by many connoisseurs from all over the world. We couldn't believe the many difference flavours that come from different cocoa pods from all over the world. We tasted chocolate from Mexico, Grenada, Africa, Madagascar, Trinidad, England, and others - can't remember. Absolutely amazing!! Still buzzzzing a bit! The setting - complete with overhead presentation - quite exciting information that we never knew we needed to know!

The finale was a fun bonfire at the beach with traditional costumes for the drummers and dancers....