We're back from Costa Rica!

Our three weeks in Costa Rica and Panama proved to be a very good learning experience. There's at least a couple stories for every day we were there. I think I shot upwards of a 1000 photos and almost an hour of video footage and I can't wait to share it with you all soon.

For now I'd just like to share a few photos from the trip.

One of the indigenous farmers we visited required taking a canoe up the river. This also means that for them to deliver their beans, they have to go the same route.

After the canoe ride up the river we had to ride in the back of a cattle truck on dirt roads to reach the farm.

 This is a Capuchin monkey. He was very angry with us for walking through his territory.

A coffee shop in Puerto Viejo was serving chocolate shots, similar to an espresso shot without sugar, using beans from a nearby cooperative.

At this cacao farm we enjoyed a few coconut refrescos.

A farmer drops off some of his organic beans at this cooperative in Panama.

This is what a well maintained cacao grove looks like.

Unlike most fruits, the cacao pod can grow directly from the trunk of the tree. (However, these might not be Theobroma Cacao... I think they are some other Theobroma species)

We found an entire river that was hot right next to a hot spring business that was charging $100 per person.

I know this photo is obscene, but it's the closest shot I got of a howler monkey. 

This tree was filled with a family of howler monkeys but they were quite far away.

Try finding some of these books at your local library... We didn't.

Caribbean postcard shot. Cahuita.

While at one of the indigenous farms we found a poison arrow frog—they are only poisonous if they get into your bloodstream.

We were told that this snake has enough venom to kill five adults.

We needed a photo posing next to a cacao tree right?

It's harder to catch waves on a bike.

We spent a morning snorkling off the coast of Cahuita—we mostly saw schools of fish and sting rays.

This very large spider was on the balcony of one of our hotels.

The mucilage around a cacao seed is very enjoyable.

We saw this three-toed sloth just as it was climbing down a large tree to take his tri-weekly poop, which apparently is a rare thing to witness.

At this farm the workers use a series of cable lines to bring large amounts of cacao back to the processing center in one trip. This guy is carrying about 700-800 pounds...

This cacao farm is the home of about 40 to 50 wild two-toed sloths.

We had dinner two nights in a row at this restaurant because the view of the Arenal volcano was so breathtaking.

We weren't 100% sure that we'd be able to bring beans back for testing, but we successfully brought back over 60 pounds.

And yes, we started a batch our first morning back. We were very excited to put all of our new knowledge to use. 

Cheers,

Robbie and Anna

Costa Rica Bound in March

It’s official. Anna and I have booked our airline reservations to Costa Rica. We’ll be arriving at the San Jose Juan Santamaria International airport on March 6th and we won’t be coming back until three weeks later. We have many goals while we are there, including finding farmers that we can work with in the future and mostly learning about what it takes to produce good quality cacao.

Our first week will be spent with Steve DeVries and Pam Williams in the Ecole Chocolat educational setting. It will be vastly helpful for us to work with people that know their way in and out of the bean-to-bar business and know the cacao growing hot spots in Costa Rica. Our original itinerary called for just one week down South, but we were able to work things out for us to stay an extra two weeks. This will give us a chance to explore and deepen our understanding of sourcing cacao from Central America.

The majority of our time will be spent in Costa Rica but we would love to visit some of the cooperatives in Panama and hopefully discover some organic growers in Nicaragua. Developing positive relationships with the farmers and cooperatives will be an essential step toward gaining momentum for Chocolate Baar. The better we prepare for our travels in Costa Rica—the better our short trip will be spent.

As March approaches, we’ll keep you up to date on some of our travel plans. In the mean time, we have beans from Panama and Madagascar on the way and they should be arriving by late next week. Can't wait to taste the finished product! Thanks for reading.