I have been on a quest the last six months: To find raw cacao beans that I was happy with. I want to roast, process and turn them into 100% cacao chocolate here at home.
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They needed to be:
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Single-origin, ethically-farmed.
Not the favoured Criollo variety (it has way too much caffeine for me)
In bags that aren’t 75kg!
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After a lot of virtual digging, I found these Nicaraguan beans grown close to @tropical_homestead and I’ve got myself a 3kg sack.
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They *nearly* fit all my criteria. The only bonus would be to have them come over to Europe on a sail boat @fairtransport.shipping :-)
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I’m likely to transform my chocolate into one of the pre-Columbian drinks I’ve learnt about in the wonderful book The Secret Life of Chocolate. If you want to hear more about how to drink cacao like our ancestors did, go to the interview @farmandhearth and I did with the author @nocturnalherbalist on the @ancestralkitchenpodcast (link to the podcast is in my profile).