This Is It! Announcing Coto Brus 1

Finally, after years of research and work, we have developed a process to produce high quality beans. These are beans that any bean-to-bar maker would be happy to use - well fermented, well dried and with a flavor that mixes luscious chocolate with tropical fruit notes.

This is all thanks to Dan O'Doherty, of Cacao Services, a cacao consultant from Hawaii, who spent the month of September at the Chocolate Farm, teaching me how to ferment and dry cacao, as well as best practices in regard to fertilizing and pruning the cacao plantation.His knowledge is comprehensive and deep. Every aspect of growing cacao, fermentation and drying and making chocolate was improved by his tutelage.

Dan, hard at work opening cacao fruits.

We have made chocolate from the results of this collaboration and it is good!

We call it Coto Brus, after the river that flows through our valley. This will be the new name of our beans as we market it to bean-to-bar makers. Our beans are already being used by Samaritan Xocolata in Costa Rica and Manoa Chocolate in Hawaii.

It is important to let the beans age before making chocolate. This is just one of the basic but very important things I learned from Dan. We have chocolate now that was made with Coto Brus 1, the first batch of beans that Dan and I fermented together. There are three distinct types of chocolate made with Coto Brus 1.

this is what we hope our trees will look like after our planned intensive program of pruning, fertilizing and grafting

The first  is made with the beans immediately after they were dried. This chocolate has a more acidic, sharper flavor and the fruity notes are not as developed. But the beans were more heavily roasted so the chocolate flavor is more pronounced. This chocolate is named "Coto Brus 1a".

The second is "Coto Brus 1b", but the chocolate was made after the beans had aged 6 weeks. The fruit is more pronounced, with strong notes of cherry and strawberry and the chocolate a little less, due to the lighter roasting.

The third is "Coto Brus 1b mixed", mixed with some chocolate I made in June with our original fermentation technique. This is Keli's favorite, because it mixes the fruity notes of Coto Brus 1 with the more chocolatey elements of the June chocolate.

the drying rack, modeled by "the farmer's daughter"