Anna's Roast

Anna is our next door neighbor at the Chocolate Farm. In fact, her and her family are our only neighbors for quite a stretch. You can go for a mile in either direction and not meet anybody except a cow or a worker trudging up the road to their work on one of the ranches in the area.
We trained Anna to help us roast cacao. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to roast a pound and a half of beans in one of our cast iron pans. So even roasting two pans at a time it still takes a long time to roast enough beans for a big batch.
Anna's kids grew up, of course, on their farm and they are used to helping out with all the chores. So when Anna goes to work they quite naturally help out. They know how to do winnowing already because they winnow the family's rice and beans. They are very good at getting all the shells out of the beans.
I like to use a hair dryer because it is a little quicker but it can also blow away some of the cacao.


This batch was 70% cacao and 30% organic evaporated sugar cane juice. (Not our sugar cane - we saved that for a batch called "Harmonia.")


Batch #1 was only ground for 4 hours but is still quite smooth. Batch #2 was ground for 8 hours. Both batches have very subtle additions of vanilla and cinnamon. We could only tell the difference with a side by side comparison. They are both very smooth with a hint of tannin at the end.

Anthony and Julieta winnowing in the breeze

Anna and her daughter Kimberly roasting cacao in our kitchen

Winnowing with a hair dryer