Organic Cacao with a Triple Bottom Line: The Very Tasty Story of Maya Mountain Cacao

Me and my neatly raked piles of cacao on the drying beds
at Maya Mountain Cacao

I returned from my week in the jungles of Belize inspired by the story of Maya Mountain Cacao. A for-profit, socially responsible company, Maya Mountain Cacao brings the craft chocolate movement directly to the doorstep of small-holder cacao farmers. The farmers earn more for their cacao, and the craft chocolate makers earn direct access to a consistent supply of some of the best cacao in the world. It enables direct trade to flourish among even the smallest craft chocolate makers. It’s a wonderful win-win situation that benefits everyone involved and is a model for the future of fine flavor cacao.

My introduction to Maya Mountain Cacao (“MMC”) started when Mark and I arrived at the Cotton Tree Lodge on our first day in Belize. Located on the grounds of the lodge, MMC’s fermentation house, drying beds and seedling operations are steps from the cabanas. The grounds are dotted with cacao trees everywhere, and guests are encouraged to pluck ripe pods from trees and partake of the juicy, sweet cacao pulp inside.

Me and Carlos covering fermenting cacao w/banana leaves
Photo courtesy of Bryan Graham, Fruition Chocolate

We were also invited to spend as much time as we’d like at the fermentation house.  I helped MMC’s Carlos and his team move fermenting cacao from the 2nd of three bins to the 3rd and final bin. I had my arms up to my elbows in hot, sticky, wet fermenting cacao, helping to shove beans from the bottom of bin two to the top of bin three while breaking up clumps of beans with my hands. Carlos pulled out his machete to cut long swaths of banana leaves to use as a covering to help build up heat in the boxes of fermenting cacao. We carefully covered the tops of the fermenting piles to ensure there were no “peeping beans”, as Carlos put it. Then I headed to the drying beds, where I learned that the majority of the day is spent raking beans to prevent them from getting moldy. Beans ferment for six days and get moved twice during that process, which means that moving the beans only happens every other day and only takes about 15 minutes. The rest of the time is spent raking.

What’s so special about Maya Mountain Cacao? There are a few things that make it innovative.

Maya Mountain Cacao's Triple Bottom Line & Partners

MMC is a for-profit, socially responsible company with a triple bottom line that focuses on social, environmental and financial measures of success. Its approach to the business of fine cacao is one that

Alex Whitmore at Hummingbird Farm

encourages the farmers to act economically and make good business decisions. A key founding member of the company is Alex Whitmore of Taza Chocolate, a craft chocolate maker who knows exactly what craft chocolate makers look for in fine cacao. MMC’s ability to deliver cacao that meets the highest requirements of the craft chocolate movement is one of its competitive advantages, and is a major reason why it had a waiting list of 31 craft chocolate makers this year. There just isn't enough of this fabulous cacao to go around.

Emily Stone at Hummingbird Farm

Another competitive advantage is Emily Stone, MMC’s Managing Director and one of its original founders.

Emily was a shareholder activist in Boston in her mid-twenties, advocating for major corporations to “green” their supply chains. Just about the time she had tired of sitting behind a computer, she met Alex Whitmore of Taza Chocolate and Jeff Pzena of the Cotton Tree Lodge, who had formulated a plane for Maya Mountain Cacao. Two weeks later, Emily was on a plan to Punta Gorda, Belize. Four years later, she’s never looked back.

I first met Emily at a chocolate makers’ brunch at Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco last January. Emily introduced herself and told me how excited she was that Mark and I were joining Taza’s chocolate week in Belize in March. We had a great conversation, and after she walked away, another chocolate maker approached me. He said, “You don’t understand, Emily controls the Belizean cacao market.” I have to admit I thought that was a bit of hyperbole. Until I saw Emily in action in Belize.

Emily is a force of nature. She’s smart, eloquent, politically savvy, and she knows how to build consensus. Her background in grassroots organizing has been an incredible benefit to her ability to make MMC a success. We arrived the day after the annual farmers meeting. Not only did Emily speak at the meeting, she read her speech in both dialects of Maya spoken by the farmers, Q'eqchi' and Mopan Maya. She has a sense of adventure, which is important when you’re traveling around the jungles of Belize, and now Guatemala (MMC just set up a new operation in Guatemala), and she’s not afraid of anything. I had moments of envy, wishing that I had such gumption at her age.

Gabriel Pop, courtesy MMC

It would have been difficult for MMC to be successful, however, without Gabriel Pop, son of the illustrious Eladio Pop, and the fourth founder of MMC. As a local cacao farmer and former Field Director for the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, Gabriel had the relationships and credibility that were necessary for MMC’s success. He believed in MMC’s mission and made the first key introductions by organizing buying days in villages where he knew farmers would be receptive.

One more aspect that makes MMC an innovative company in the Belizean market is its focus on fermentation practices and purchasing wet cacao from the farmers. Traditionally, Belizean farmers would ferment their own cacao and sell it for a dry price. By purchasing wet cacao, MMC controls the fermentation process, resulting in consistent fermentation rates geared towards the craft chocolate market. This brings a level of consistency to a batch of fermented cacao that isn’t possible when farmers are individually controlling the fermentation of their crop.

What’s also really cool is that MMC enables small craft chocolate makers to purchase cacao directly in small quantities, something that has been next to impossible until now. It shortens the supply chain, eliminating the many layers of middlemen common in a commodity supply chain. Farmers are paid a more significant share of the final price for their cacao, and chocolate makers get more value out of their dollar by ensuring that more of what they pay ends up in farmers’ pockets. All of this encourages farmers to continue to produce cacao and to do it with quality in mind.

Me and Mark with Dahlia & Bryan of Fruition Chocolate
Bryan is on a waiting list for MMC cacao.

There are so many additional ways in which MMC has impacted its community. It has increased the acreage certified as organic, rehabilitated land from slash-and-burn agriculture, increased farmer income, improved availability of pre-harvest financing through microcredit, created jobs, and contributed to the emergence of new community leaders.

The team behind MMC has a number of exciting new initiatives that will increase the size of their impact in Belize and in Guatemala. While we were in Belize, MMC signed an operating agreement with the owner of the former Hummingbird Hershey cacao farm. MMC is rehabilitating the farm that was abandoned by Hershey years ago and is turning it into an organic cacao farm that will produce a significant volume of the quality cacao available in Belize. Guatemala is also on the agenda. As we left Belize, Alex and Emily were headed to Guatemala, where they recently set up an operation that has similar goals to MMC.

In my next blog post, I’ll share the story of the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, the Fairtrade farmer’s association set up in the Toledo District of Belize. While they were founded in 1986, the majority of their success came in the mid-1990’s when they began selling their cacao to Green & Blacks for the Maya Gold bar. It’s an incredibly interesting story, and we had the opportunity to hear it first hand from the Chair of the farmers association from 1992-1997. It brought to life the advantages and challenges faced by farmers' associations. I took a lot of notes, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you.

Eladio Pop: A Motivational Mayan Organic Cacao Farmer

Eladio Pop

Our visit to Belize for Taza Chocolate’s annual chocolate week began with a visit to Eladio Pop, a Mayan cacao farmer who is somewhat famous in the Toledo District of southern Belize. He is the main character in a documentary called "The Chocolate Farmer", and he's been the subject of other videos and write-ups as well. Search “Eladio Pop” on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.

Eladio's Cacao Pods

We met Eladio at his “farm” in the jungle. I put farm in quotes because it’s not an orchard with neatly planted rows of a single crop of trees as you might expect in the US. Eladio's farm is a mass of organized jungle, filled with fruit trees of all kinds, cedar and mahogany trees, rubber trees, spice trees, chili bushes and every kind of edible or useful plant you can imagine. It’s not planted in an orderly fashion, but Eladio knows every plant on his farm, its history and exactly where it’s located.

As I listened to the ever-smiling Eladio talk about his farm, I couldn’t help but think that he could be coining it in the US as a motivational speaker. He had plenty of enthusiasm and charisma, but also a strong personal philosophy that included beliefs about the detriments of education, the preservation of his cultural Mayan heritage, slash & burn farming, his ants, cacao, you name it. His wardrobe seems to consist of t-shirts from the US with messages on them. The first one he wore during our visit was a local, "Maya Mountain Cacao" shirt, followed by a “think outside the box” t-shirt and then a "TURN OFF the TV" shirt, which my husband, Mark, pointed out was a Seattle company. I noticed on various photos on the internet that his collection includes “The Rules Don’t Apply to Me”, an NYPD shirt, and more. These t-shirts left me with many questions, such as “Did he purchase these shirts himself?” “Did visitors leave them for him?”, “Does he choose the message to make a statement, or does he just like the shirts?” But I digress.

Mayan Ruins on Eladio's Farm

Pete, the botanist, with Eladio

We began our tour near a cacao tree with a sign that says “Agouti Cacao Farm, owned by Eladio Pop”. Eladio cracked open a cacao pod and passed it around for our first taste of mucilage in Belize. This was a recurring theme throughout our trip. Plenty of cacao mucilage to taste, all of it juicy and delicious, and yes, it grows on trees all over the jungle and at the Cotton Tree Lodge. And, as my fellow travelers would knowingly say, "we had Pete", an exuberant botanist who plucked any edible fruit off of any tree we came across and figured out how to open it so we could taste whatever he'd found. Pete kept us eating cacao throughout our trip. The just-off-the-tree, fresh pods of Belize had lots of thick, sweet, tart and fruity mucilage that was like ambrosia. Mucilage is the gelatinous pulp that covers cacao beans and is critical to fermentation. It tastes fantastic in its raw form.

Mmmm! Fresh, juicy cacao beans covered in mucilage

I’ve always told my customers that you suck on the pulp of cacao but that you don’t eat the beans because they’re too bitter. That’s been the experience I’ve had when hanging out with chocolate makers and cacao scientists - they usually spit out the beans after enjoying the pulp. It turns out I was wrong. The Maya we met suck on the pulp and eat the beans. In fairness, these are the best-tasting cacao beans I’ve ever tasted. While there’s certainly a bitter finish when chewing on the beans, they taste nothing like the ones I’ve been able to get my hands on in the US. I can understand why a farmer would eat the entire thing.

Organic composting at its best

As we rambled through the jungle with Eladio, he pointed out trees, property lines, termite nests and his ants. Ants are an important part of his organic farming and they serve as an indicator of the farm’s health. What I thought were very narrow hiking paths on the ground turned out to be ant trails that lead to a large anthill. The ants had built up a significant mound of lovely, aerated dirt, and Eladio picked up a handful and threw it on the base of a nearby tree. He relies on this excellent dirt to improve the soil quality on his farm.

As we continued our hike through Eladio’s farm he pointed to property lines on distant hills. It looked like one large jungle to me, seemingly impossible to distinguish one property from another through the dense forest and steep hills. His cacao trees are scattered about his farm among allspice trees, apple bananas, hot chili peppers, cedar, calabash, Theobroma Bicolor (a different species than cacao) and mahogany trees, to name just a few of the crops he grows.  A strong memory for me was crumpling a leaf from an allspice tree and smelling its deep, spicy aroma. Allspice is a key ingredient in Mayan drinking chocolate, and we later had the opportunity to drink cacao and allspice in a traditional Mayan drink made by Eladio's daughter.

View of neighboring farms in the distance

We arrived at a clearing where Apple Bananas were laid out on a tarp for us to eat. There was a hot chili bush nearby with tiny, oblong green and red chilies ready to taste. Many of us tried the hot chilies, and very soon I heard someone say, “Wash it down with an Apple Banana”, which I did. My mouth and throat were on fire.

Eladio & two of his sons

Eladio's youngest son

Eladio’s farm is a perfect example of a multi-culture in which a diverse group of crops come together to form a perfect organic farm. Organic, multi-culture farming has been the Maya tradition for generations, and it enables cacao farmers to feed their families, no matter how cash poor they are. The Maya could teach us a thing or two about organic farming. There have been aid agencies that have come to Toledo and tried to teach the farmers to use fertilizer and pesticides (“inputs”), but many shied away from it because it wasn’t part of their tradition. Luckily, the aid groups left and the cacao farmers returned to their organic cacao-farming processes. Stay tuned for a blog post about the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, the farmer's cooperative, and their experiences with some of these outside aid groups.

We left Eladio’s farm and headed to his family home, where we ate lunch. Eladio is a virulent man with fifteen children. His family lives in a cement-block house with a thatched roof, pretty much the same as every Mayan village we saw. Their kitchen is in a separate area with a dirt floor, no walls and its own thatched roof. While his family may seem poor by US standards, they have a lot of food. As one of his colleagues said, “We’re poor in cash, but rich in food.”

Ryan from Raaka Chocolate showing Eladio's kids a video of how he makes chocolate in a machine

In Eladio’s case, business appears to be pretty good. His family offers tours, overnight jungle stays and chocolate making classes through their website and through the Cotton Tree Lodge and various tour groups. In the past year he constructed a new group lunch area with a cement patio and a thatched roof. His youngest son followed us around the farm with an iPhone, photographing us as much as we were photographing him. It’s wonderful to see a traditional, organic cacao farmer being appreciated by outsiders for his principles and practices. I look forward to seeing what Eladio’s up to in the future.

Me and Eladio

Next up on your armchair tour of Belize, a feature on Maya Mountain Cacao.

Happy chocolate tasting,
Lauren
Chief Chocophile

Taza Chocolate: A Small Chocolate Maker with an Outsized Impact

As many of you know, I spent a week in Belize at the Cotton Tree Lodge with Taza Chocolate. I have so many great cacao-related stories to share with you that it’s hard to choose which one to share next. I’ve decided that since this week’s chocolate happy hour theme is Taza Chocolate I should, well, talk about Taza Chocolate! Before I start, I’d like to throw down a challenge to our customers.

Lauren's Chocolate Challenge
This challenge is for everyone, but particularly for those of you who have tasted Taza Chocolate before -  I challenge you to try it again. If you’ve never tasted Taza Chocolate, I challenge you to taste it with an open mind (and palate).

As you taste this “perfectly unrefined” chocolate, focus on the flavor of the cacao. Taza purchases some of the best organic cacao in the world and minimally refines it to bring you closer to the flavor of the cacao bean. I’ve learned to embrace the crunchy texture of Taza’s unrefined style, and to enjoy the taste of great cacao. I encourage you to do the same.

Alex Whitmore at Maya Mtn Cacao

Direct Trade, Taza Style
As the organizer of chocolate week at the Cotton Tree Lodge, Taza Chocolate Founder, Alex Whitmore, had the bully pulpit for the week. On three nights, Alex gave talks on topics as wide-ranging as chocolate refining techniques, Mayan cacao farmers and Direct Trade versus Fairtrade. I have something to say about each of these topics, but for this post I’m going to tell you what makes Taza such an extraordinary company – its commitment to Direct Trade.

Taza is a small company. By small, I mean a blip on the charts of the world’s major chocolate companies. Taza produces very small amounts of chocolate using a fraction of a percent of the world’s cacao. At the same time, Taza is one of the largest craft chocolate companies, which puts it in a unique position. Compared to its artisan peers, who might use hundreds of pounds of cacao a year, Taza uses tons of cacao a year, enough to have an impact at the country of origin. And impact it has.

You may notice a Direct Trade logo on every bar of Taza Chocolate. This logo is not sanctioned by any particular group - it’s one that Taza created. Yet it has more meaning and impact than many of the sanctioned fair trade logos on the market. How does such a small company have such a big impact? Taza works directly with cacao farmers, sets clear quality standards for fermented cacao, pays more for cacao than the competition and hires an independent, third party to audit its direct trade practices every year.  As Alex pointed out, it all comes down to transparency. Taza is a fully transparent company.
But wait. There’s more!

Many of Taza’s craft chocolate peers aren’t able to purchase the same volumes of cacao, which severely limits their access to the finest cacao in the world. In the spirit of cooperation, Taza sells cacao to many small artisans, providing them with access to some of the same great cacao Taza is sourcing directly from the countries of origin for its own use. This ensures that more chocolate is being made with directly-sourced cacao. It’s a win-win-win for Taza, for its peers and for cacao farmers.

I admit I’ve looked at the Direct Trade logo on Taza chocolate bars many times without really understanding what it meant. Let me provide a summary of the power behind that small graphic label.

Maya Mountain Cacao does detailed flavor & fermentation analysis on every batch of cacao

Taza Chocolate’s Five Direct Trade Principles
Taza sources superior quality cacao beans that have 95% or higher fermentation rates and are dried to 7% moisture or less. In addition, Taza follows five direct trade principles.

1. Works exclusively with USDA Certified Organic cacao farms that practice sustainable agriculture
2. Pays a premium of at least $500US per metric ton above the NYICE price and a floor price of $2,800 per metric ton on the date of invoice directly to cacao farmers
3. Physically visits each cacao farmer or cooperative at least once a year to build long-term, sustainable relationships
4. Only buys cacao from farmers and farmer coops that ensure fair and humane work practices
5. Never purchases cacao from farmers or farmer coops that engage in child or slave labor

Alex smells cacao drying at Hummingbird farm in Cayo

At great expense, particularly for a start-up chocolate company, Taza hires an independent, third party auditor each year to certify its direct trade claims, and it produces a report that's available for anyone to review.

Wow! What more can I say? A lot, actually.

The subject of fair trade versus direct trade is a long, complicated affair. Taza’s direct trade approach is a much more robust and impactful way to make change at the farmer’s level. I would be remiss if I didn’t compare Taza’s use of direct trade to fair trade. Without the comparison, you wouldn’t understand the impact.

In the interest of keeping you from nodding off, I’m going to summarize and make it as simple as possible. Please keep in mind that my over-simplified version is exactly that. But it’s a good start at helping my readers understand the pros, cons and limitations of many of the fair trade programs on the market.

An example of fair trade cacao pricing:

How is fair trade different than direct trade? I’ll summarize by sharing the price difference for a farmer selling at the fair trade price versus a farmer selling to Taza Chocolate. Please keep in mind that the floor prices stated are a minimum price. Historically, cacao has traded below these prices, but it's currently at some of its highest prices, so it's selling above both floor prices. Prices are approximate as of April 14, 2014.

Fair trade and Certified Organic cocoa price:
Fairtrade floor price: $2,000 per metric ton

$3,060US per metric ton (current market price)
+$200US Fair trade premium per metric ton
+$300US organic premium
$3,560US per metric ton

It’s important to keep a few things in mind when looking at this number:

1. The cacao farmer does not receive the fair trade premium directly. The premium is given to the coop, and the coop Board determines how it will spend premium money. An example might be building new infrastructure (e.g., water wells) for member villages. In this example, the farmer would keep approximately $3,360US.
2. Farmers not Certified Organic will not receive the Organic premium
3. Farmers must pay a certification fee to the fair trade organization and to a USDA-approved organic certifier to receive either of these premiums. Certification can be expensive and out of the question for many small farmers. Farmers who are producing quality cacao and being paid more than market rates may not bother with fair trade certification because of the expense and the bureaucracy involved.
4. While craft chocolate makers might purchase cacao that’s fair trade certified, they must also pay to certify their business to use the fair trade logo. This is an expense that’s often outside the budget of a craft chocolate maker. Some of the chocolate you’re eating maybe fair trade, but it may not have a logo on it.

A cut test on fermented beans to assess quality

Taza Chocolate Direct Trade price:
Taza Direct Trade floor price: $2,800US

$3,060US per metric ton (current market price)
+$500US per metric ton Taza direct trade premium
+$300US organic premium
$3,860US per metric ton

While this is the minimum amount Taza pays for cacao that meets its criteria, Taza may end up paying more. Some of the cacao Taza purchases is in high demand among the finest chocolate makers. Farmers selling fine cacao can command prices well above the world market rate, and a quality chocolate maker like Taza will pay the higher price. At the end of the day, selling well-fermented, quality cacao is what brings farmers a higher price.

There’s so much more to consider, but I’m going to stop here.

Stay tuned for next week’s blog post, Eladio Pop: A motivational Mayan organic cacao farmer.

You Better Belize it! My cacao adventures in the jungles of Belize.

After six years in the chocolate business, I finally had an opportunity to immerse myself in cacao, figuratively and literally, by joining Taza Chocolate’s annual chocolate week in Belize.  Held every March at the Cotton Tree Lodge outside of Punta Gorda, the trip is open to anyone who loves chocolate and the outdoors, and

Lauren and Mark at Maya Mtn Cacao

has a sense of adventure. My husband, Mark Kotzer, and I had a fantastic time. I highly recommend it!

I’m embarrassed to say that I initially had visions of waking up to the waters of the Caribbean Sea lapping at our cabana doorstep. It didn’t take me long to realize that our lodge was 11 miles up the Moho River from Punta Gorda (“PG”) and the Caribbean Sea, situated in the middle of the Belizean jungle.  Not to worry, just saying the word “jungle” turned this trip from the ordinary to the exotic.

As our Delta redeye from LA approached the Belize City International airport, I could see many varied trees that formed a pin cushion of greens, each pin coming together to create a pattern of shades and textures. Lush forests were dotted with rivers, large and small. As the plane came closer to landing, individual trees became apparent. Some were tall and spindly and stood above the others. Many were palm trees. From the air, Belize takes on the look of a vast and untamed jungle. This trip was beginning to have “adventure” written all over it.

A street in Punta Gorda

Since I was finally making it to a cacao-growing country, and a Mayan one at that, I relaxed my ban on flying in small planes. Mark and I boarded a Tropic Air flight to Punta Gorda. We flew down the coast, giving us a birds-eye-view of the extensive coral reefs of the Caribbean on one side of the plane, and the endless jungle on the other. Our flight included a quick, bumpy stop on the dirt runway at the Belize Airport (not to be confused with the Philip S. Goldson International Airport where our Delta flight landed) to take on cargo such as flower wreaths, appliances and toilet paper. That was as close as we got to Belize City.

Upon arriving at the Cotton Tree Lodge, we moved into our cabana, which was a large, circular room on stilts that was wrapped with screens in place of windows. The screens left us feeling almost as one with the

Our cabana at the Cotton Tree Lodge

jungle and with our neighboring cabanas. Our beds were covered with mosquito nets, and the back porch offered two hammocks and some very comfortable Adirondack-like chairs. Like the roofs on the Maya homes we would see everywhere, ours was made of a significant thatch.

I took my first swim in the Moho River before the group met for our introductory dinner. The color of the river reminded me of the lakes I swam in as a child in Maine. Dark and murky, but cool and refreshing. One thing I learned about the jungle is that breezes are few and humidity is high. Swimming in the Moho is the best relief on a sticky, sweaty day.  It’s also the best way to see the many, many colorful birds that live in the area and frequent the trees on the Moho. Parrots are everywhere, once you learn to recognize their awkward flying. There are tanagers, Laughing Falcons, hummingbirds, and many birds I’ve never heard of before. We saw large iguanas sunning themselves in the treetops (although none of them as large as the six-foot orange iguana we saw in Placencia). While the national bird of Belize is the Toucan, it’s one of the only birds I didn’t see during our stay. As an avid swimmer, I was glad to find out the Moho River is crocodile-free.

Our Cabana

Jaguars are native to the area, but I knew the likelihood of seeing one was small. The owner of the lodge, Chris, has only seen two in 30 years, and both of those at night.  Howler Monkeys, on the other hand, are frequent visitors, particularly at night. I’m not sure who named them “howler” monkeys, because it certainly doesn’t sound like they’re howling. Darth Vader monkeys would be more appropriate. A local told us that the noise used for T-Rex in Jurassic Park was a recording of Howler Monkeys slowed down. That made sense. When they come swinging into the jungle, you hear the heavy breathing of Darth Vader getting louder and louder, with an occasional bark in between. They don’t always stay for long, but you know they’re there. I never saw them, but Shane from Taza did. They’re not that large, they just sound big.

Alex Whitmore, Taza Chocolate

We met our fellow chocophiles at dinner the first night, where we feasted on snapper poached in banana leaves. It was a wonderful group of people that spanned interests and generations. In addition to industry types, such as Bryan and Dahlia Graham from Fruition Chocolate and the guys from Raaka Chocolate, the group included chocolate lovers who found the trip online, and loyal Taza customers. There were 22 of us, including two Taza employees, Shane (a cacao roaster) and Suhayl (a marketing/social media/events evangelist for Taza Chocolate).

Taza, Raaka & Fruition walking in PG

After dinner, Alex Whitmore, the Founder of Taza Chocolate, welcomed us. In preparation for our activities the following morning, we watched a documentary about the cacao farmers of the Toledo district, which featured the farmer we’d be visiting, Eladio Pop (more about Eladio and the cacao farmers of Toledo in a blog post to come). Eladio is quite a character, and he’s an excellent example of an organic cacao farmer from a country that has farmed cacao and made chocolate for centuries. I recommend watching the documentary, “The Chocolate Farmer,” on Youtube.

In preparation for the rest of our evening, a very large bug landed on the screen while we were watching the documentary. I sketched a 3 inch version of the bug in my notebook and wrote “Bigger than this by 2x”. It was a HUGE flying bug. Its relatives awaited us back in our bathroom.

Nim Li Punit w/Agapito

Our week was filled with group activities that included hanging out on cacao farms, swimming in dark Mayan caves and visiting Mayan ruins. I’m going to break down our adventures into multiple blog posts, focused on the cacao and chocolate-related parts of the trip. There’s just so much to tell!

Since I can’t cover everything, I’m leaving you with my top 10 memories of our week of adventure, not in any particular order.


Lauren's Chocolate Week Top 10

1. Getting my arms into a pile of sticky, hot, fermenting cacao to help MMC employees Carlos, Francisco and Mordechai move it to the final bin to finish fermentation. I’m still picturing Carlos as he cut banana leaves with his machete so I could cover the fermenting cacao.
2. A cold and dark swim through Blue Creek Cave with a life preserver and a headlamp, swimming and scrambling over rocks while providing moral support to those less comfortable in water.
3. A nocturnal jungle walk with Armando (insert ABBA song here) where I realized that the jungle is made up of a lot of ants and spiders, and that spider eyes look like emeralds and sapphires in the dark with a flashlight.
4. Swimming in the Moho River while birds of every kind and color flew just above my head and hung out on trees around me. I’m just glad I wasn’t in the water when a boa constrictor fell off a tree and swam past Julie, a fellow Chocophile.
5. Doing the Cotton Tree triathlon, which consisted of a very short run followed by floating down the Moho River with the current and kayaking back for our shoes.
6. Hearing the howler monkeys every day
7. Meeting with the former Association Chair of the Toledo Cacao Growers Association (a non-profit coop). Truly a geeky moment for me. More to come in another blog post.
8. Visiting Eladio Pop’s jungle farm, eating lunch with his family and helping his wife and daughter make traditional drinking chocolate. More to come in another blog post.
9. Touring Maya Mountain Cacao after a great presentation by Emily Stone, Managing Director. More to come on Maya Mountain Cacao and the great work it’s doing with the farmers of Belize.
10. A day trip to Hummingbird Hershey, a former Hershey farm that Maya Mountain Cacao will be operating as an organic cacao farm for at least the next 10 years. This was probably my favorite day of the entire trip! More to come in another blog post.

Stay tuned for more blog posts about cacao in Belize and our trip. In the meantime, I leave you with a rare, goofy moment from my husband, Mark Kotzer.

Mark in a light moment

Happy chocolate tasting,

Lauren

Chief Chocophile