Things Fall Apart

Carlos amid the ruins of the trapiche - you can see the juicer and the boiling vat in the background

I read a book once called "Things Fall Apart." It was fantastic, written by an African author named Chinua Achebe.
I don't remember one thing about it except the title and that it was profound and deeply moving.
But the title, that title really sticks with you.

Especially, after you've lived in Costa Rica for awhile. On the farm, everything falls apart, quite literally, unless you make preserving and protecting your structures a full time job.

The big old falling apart cauldron

Latest to fall was the trapiche, a structure dedicated to the joy of sugar. The trapiche is where we juice sugar cane and then boil it for half a day to make "dulce," the original organic brown sugar. It is the site of many a happy afternoon spent scraping caramalized sugar off the side of the huge boiling vat and almost losing a tooth to extremely sticky sugar.

Termites have been gnawing away on this building for years. We did a half-assed repair a year ago with untreated bamboo, not seriously expecting it to hold. The bamboo did OK, it was the original rafters that finally collapsed.

Cutting down a huge palm

We had to cut down a tree and a palm that were on opposite corners of the trapiche because they drop a lot of leaves on the roof. This gets wet and rusts the tin roof and before you know it, you have tiny holes everywhere in your roof.


But, mercifully, it is not just about things falling apart. It is also about things growing.

Pineapples with cardboard for weed suppression

 We planted these pineapples about a year ago. They will start bearing fruit soon. The piles of leaves you can see in the driveway, (yes, that is our driveway not a meadow. If you look closely you can see tire tracks) is covering the persistent and invasive plant that we inadvertently planted years ago, not knowing its many faults. There are still a few spots of it left and it require a stern hand to control it.

Our recent harvest of peanuts - only a small part of a bumper crop

 Humberto is cleaning cacao beans after spreading out some peanuts that he harvested earlier. If they are not put out in the sun immediately after harvest, they will start germinating.

Moringa sprouts - muy valiente!

We

These look like fractal patterns - the tiny sprouts looks almost like full grown trees.
These are moringa cuttings - after a couple of weeks in the ground they are all beginning to sprout. Soon we will have a moringa plantation! Even Humberto heard that moringa is a useful herb - he told me today that it can cure 60 different maladies.

Anna raking cacao beans.

                                                         


On my way down to the trapiche I talked to Anna. We were both happy that after days of rain and clouds we had a little sun.

Carlos' new dog - he is a sweetheart

the church looks a little naked without the huge palm over on the side. We cut it down today.Wasps, scorpions, biting ants and termites all made their home in this palm.

Miloo looking gorgeous as always

this plant is called monca and it has a variety of medicinal uses Those are cacao trees in the bags.

Our sleek new minimalist design for the fermentation roof.

The trapiche, missing its roof. The tree in the foreground and the big palm in the back have both been cut down.

the boiling vat - we can fit 50 gallons of sugar cane juice in here.

Chocolate Seminar in San Anselmo, California

Jim and Keli are presenting a seminar in San Anselmo on December 15th, all about chocolate - what it's like to live on a cacao plantation in Costa Rica, what is involved in growing and harvesting cacao and how to make chocolate. It includes a chocolate tasting and a free bar of their amazing chocolate, handmade by Jim and Keli.

Go here for more details...

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"

2013 New Years Harmonia 80%

It wasn't planned but we did our first melt of the year today,  January 1, 2013.  We melted our Harmonia batch which is the batch we make at the Chocolate Farm with xylitol.
I chose these beans carefully before I used up all our xylitol.

We made this chocolate in Dixon at the Nut N Other Farms where we get our almonds and walnuts.  It's a great space to do our bars in because there is a huge kitchen island that Jim can use for tempering.

We hope to go ahead and prepare all the chocolate we have into bars.  We'll list each batch(maybe).
 My New Years resolution was to not lick the bowl for this batch.

This batch is sold out but if you're new to the site and are someone who prefers chocolate with no sugar, email us and we'll keep it in mind next time we make chocolate.

Untempered

We just made a small batch of untempered chocolate today.
It is made with organic brown sugar and a little vanilla and cinnamon.
Some of it has hazelnuts (from Elaine's family's farm!) and some of it has peanut butter (my favorite.)

I wasn't planning on making it all untempered but as I started getting ready to temper it I discovered that I could not find my tempering tools. Keli had requested one tray of untempered and so I just decided that this was a sign to make it all untempered (not to mention that it is a LOT easier to make untempered chocolate!)

Homegrown for Diamond Heart

Here we are in California.

We have wrapped up our first batch of chocolate and the pictures below demonstrate the variety we have available.

Freshly roasted nuts and seeds

 We have not melted and wrapped the xylitol bars yet, but I know there are a couple of people who prefer these bars who can't have sugar and I'm not forgetting.  You'll be the first to know when they are ready.
. 
You can place orders by emailing Keli or Jim if you have our email addresses or you can email us at keljichocolate@gmail.com.

 As you know, we do things on a very small scale. The beans from the trees, the climate in Bonanza, the fermentation, drying, roasting, tempering etc, are all a combination of science and art with varying factors.  The value in our bars is not how perfect they are -  although we try, there is no such thing as a totally consistent outcome. But rather that we guarantee all the ingredients are the best possible quality, produced with attention to sustainable farming practices. Since we are farmers and growers these factors are very important to us and what makes our bars unique.  In fact, the variety of tastes, all good and interesting, vary according to the batch, which is why we name each batch and list the ingredients and the story behind each batch of chocolate.

Below is what we have available from our first melting and wrapping session.  It's the 'Home Grown" batch named so by Jim because it is one of the rare batches we make with the sugar we grow at the farm.

We made 4 of each kind in the small size $5.50 each
and some large pure chocolate bars $12.00 each.
one or two large with fillings and some untempered ( for those of you who know and and love the untempered)

All ingredients organic and beyond.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds and Chili--quite spicy, and full of crunch--4 small bars, 1 large untempered
Roasted Cashews--4 small bars
Orange juice sprouted Raw almonds--3 small bars
Antioxidant Boost dried blueberries--2 small bars
Roasted Hazel Nuts--4 small bars
Bonanza peanuts--3 small bars
Pure Chocolalte--8 small bars and 4 large bars
Pure Chocolate untempered--2 large bars plus some extra stuff (ask me)

The peanuts in the upper
right are our own "Bonanza peanuts"

 

Home Grown Disaster

We are simultaneously very proud of this batch and very sad about the way it turned out. It is made with our own sugar and 70% cacao. The taste is very nice but unfortunately we had one of those mysterious disasters which befalls anyone crazy enough to try and temper chocolate in the tropics.
(Tempering is highly dependent on humidity and temperature. And in the tropics, both of those elements are usually hostile to a successful tempering.)
Everything went very well. The fermentation of the beans was good, the roasting was good, all went well with the grinding and mixing, the sugar was grown on our farm and it seemed like the tempering went well. But when we opened up the rack that held the bars overnight while they cooled we could see that we had a severe case of blooming (blooming is when the chocolate turns white and the texture becomes chalky.)

And we couldn't tell why. We have had chocolate making sessions that had similar conditions and the chocolate came out great. But not this time....

Fortunately, we only attempted to temper a small part of the batch. We are bringing the rest of it to California where we will temper it under better conditions.

UPDATE!!!

We are now in California and we have tempered the rest of the Homegrown batch and it is beautiful! Just another example of how easy it is to temper in a temperate climate and how hard in a tropical climate.

Nothing to do with chocolate - I just like this picture. Marcos is the happy farmer with the big jackfruit