Searching for Chocolate in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica: Day 5 – CARIBEANS

Caribeans Coffee, Chocolate and Ice Cream

As the last day of our trip approached, the rain started and continued all night and into the day as if to prove beyond a doubt that we were in a real rain forest. This was our cue to find a decent coffee shop – one with an espresso machine but without the continuous party music of the popular reggae bar and grill, Tex Mex.   Caribeans is a little coffee and ice cream shop in town right near the water.  We were told it’s got the best coffee in Puerto Viejo, so with little time to spare, we went straight there.

Don’t expect air conditioning and all dangling blown-glass lights with well-coordinated furniture like Starbucks- if that’s what you need you should probably vacation in Miami instead[1].  Like so many places in Puerto Viejo, this is some kind of converted house or maybe fishshack and has taken on a sandy, organic character of its own.  You can enjoy your drink inside while surfing the web at one of the free internet computers, you can sit out in front and listen to the waves, or you can park yourself at a couple of small tables by the water and watch the surfers over at Playa Negro.

The place serves up a few of life’s basic necessities:  coffee, ice cream and chocolate.  Beyond that they also had baking bars, roasted cacao nibs, tee-shirts and other accessories.  The chocolate comes in an array of flavors including orange, cardamom and other experiments.   Since it was mid-afternoon, I decided to get something cold – an iced cappuccino and sit by the water while my son teased the waves.

But I had two missions this day – one to find some decent java and another to figure out where the chocolate in Puerto Viejo was really coming from.  Clearly the Cocoa House could only make enough for their on-site sales and a bit of rough stuff for exfoliating at the spas, while Cacao Trails couldn’t possibly grow enough cacao for all their tours and Echo Books, despite their fresh and refined results, was clearly not doing bean-to-bar in the back room.  Would the chocolate at Caribeans turn out to be identical to one of the others?  Where is the chocolate factory?

The author with beach head in full bloom talks with Caribeans owner, Kees.

To get a handle on this,  I caught up with the owner, Kees Hessels, an energetic and optimistic guy who gave me a quick tour of the place.  Kees is active in the community working on a mission to bring fairly traded goods from the indigenous people to a broader market.  Kees explained that they used to have a chocolate factory at the shop until recently when their refining machine failed in a blaze of exploding chocolate glory spewing chocolate all over the walls and ceiling. They’ve since moved the factory off site which is just as well since they have bigger equipment now and can make more chocolate [2].

Organic, Fair Trade Chocolate

It seems that the chocolate factory has eluded me once again, but the chocolate hasn’t.  With a plane to catch, there was no time for a full-on tasting, but I did take some notes on their Organic 80% Dark Chocolate bar.

 

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This 80% dark chocolate bar made it home with me from Costa Rica, so it's a bit well-traveled, but you can get an idea of its semi-tubular shape [3

WHAT:  Caribeans Organic Fair Trade Dark Chocolate. 80% Cacao. 25g.  Ingredients: cacao organico y azucar. Where to buy:  Fly to Costa Rica and drive 4-5 hours south from San Jose to Puerto Viejo.  Take the first left over the bridge into town.   Say hi to Kees when you get there.

WHEN:  March 1, 2011

AROMA:  Oh yeah. I’m going to call this the Talamanca aroma from now on – roasted ham, leather, coffee and  tobacco out the wahzoo .  This appears to be characteristic of cacao from this region and is perhaps the best thing about it.  The scent of the stuff now brings back wonderful memories of Costa Rica.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  Earthy, peat, coffee.

MIDDLE TASTE:  Peat turns into cappuccino.

FINISH:  The fruit arrives early in the finish in the form of slight melon and banana.  The very end is black tea.

TEXTURE:  A bit of a crunch which is typical of the chocolate making style of this area.  You can think of it as more of a minimally processed approach or a traditional Caribbean style. Either way, if done well, you get more of the fruitiness and raw tartness of the original bean.

After tasting this chocolate, I don’t think this bar has anything  to do with any of the others – at least the factory is not the same.  As for the beans, some may be grown just a couple of miles away at Global Creek, a place where you can go for Ecological Tours, but everyone also points to the inland mountains as the source of most beans.   That makes sense since the coastal plantations were devastated by fungus a few decades ago – a tragedy whose effects are only slowly waning.

I could go for a little more sugar and vanilla in this chocolate bar, but it would also work well with coffee as is.  Yes – I’m seeing now –  like a pure chocolate biscotti.  The cardamom bar should work especially well.  Now I have a reason to go back to Caribeans and get a good hot cappuccino to enjoy next to a cardamom dark chocolate bar while sitting out by the waves.  Maybe another trip is just what’s in order to unravel the mystery of where the cacao is coming from, how the chocolate is made … and why.

If you want to try Costa Rician chocolate, but can’t get to Puerto Viejo any time soon, try Theo’s Single-Origin Costa Rica bar.

How to find Caribeans, Puerto Viejo:

Caribeans is on the mini-peninsula between the main road and the water.  Ask where the bus station is.  If you stand with the bus stop (and the ocean) to your right, Caribeans is about  1 1/2 blocks up on the left.

[1] I have nothing against Miami – been there, done that, but it’s miles away from Puerto Viejo, physically and culturally.  One is polished, highly developed and chic (with a bit of a dark underbelly) and another authentic, raw, real and grasping, we hope successfully, onto its roots for dear life against a steady gentle breeze of change.

[2] The shop and the factory are separately owned and operated, but work closely together.

[3] I did the tasting for review before I left Costa Rica.

Searching for Chocolate in Costa Rica: Day 4 – Cacao Trails

This guy welcomes you to the orchid garden before sending off to the cacao trees

Cacao Trails Chocolate Tour, Costa Rica

I started the day in great anticipation of doing a big chocolate tour – this one without kids.  After the babysitter was set, we zoomed up north along the well-potholed roads to the Cacao Trails Chocolate Factory and Cultural Museum.  Only 15 minutes from the beach, it’s an easy drive from Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.  If you don’t have a car you can still get there on an arranged tour.  Ask your hotel or innkeeper for details.

Starting in a tropical garden

We lucked out and had an almost private tour with a Swiss couple joining us part way.  The guide led us through the bright, but comfortable Caribbean sun down a trail through an orchid garden, traditional medicine garden, banana trees and cacao trees.  Costa Rica is home to over 1000 different species of orchids and someone had spent time planting 25 or so of them in this garden.  Stepping into the traditional medicine garden we were shown the infamous noni fruit, respected by locals for it’s curative powers, but infamous for its odor.  One quick whiff and I realized it’s the only thing I’ve smelled outside of China that’s reminiscent of stinky tofu.  After a quick look at how sugar was extracted from cane back in the day, we found our way to the cacao trees.

The Return of Chocolate to the Caribbean Coast

In the old plantation where Molina has taken hold, the trees thrive while the pods rot before maturing.

Sometime in the late 70s, cacao farming was decimated by the Monila fungus bringing the chocolate industry on the Caribbean coast to a screeching halt.  Some cacao farming continued in the mountains, but the moist air by the sea allowed the fungus to flourish.  Eventually these cacao plantations were replaced by bananas, an irony since cacao had itself replaced bananas in the 1920′s when Panama disease killed off the banana trees.

These hybrid pods are thriving and will ripen to maturity

Much to our delight, the folk at Cacao Trails have been experimenting with hybrids of different cacao species – trinitario, criollo and forestero, and have found a blend that’s disease resistant.  We were able to walk among healthy cacao trees with growing pods of different colors.  We also strolled past the old plantation, the oldest on the coast, and saw the live cacao trees, decades old, with rotting fruit affected by Monila.  It was still great to see the beauty of a cacao farm that is lost on many people – that the trees can grow in the shad of the rain forest, allowing all the tropical birds, monkeys and sloths to thrive in their natural environment.  Unlike banana plantations which require clear cutting before planting, cacao, and hence chocolate, is an environmentally friendly food if cultivated properly.  It’s wonderful to see a slow revitalization of the cacao industry in Costa Rica as interest in premium and organic chocolate has spiked in recent years.

Making Chocolate by Hand

Genevieve

grinds

beans

The most fun came when we helped out with chocolate making the traditional way.  Now, “traditional” is in the eye of the beholder.  While the afro-Caribbean way would be to grind the roasted beans in something that looks like a meat grinder and then mix it up in a drink with water, we made some kind of a cross between this old way and a rustic European style.  After the beans were roasted over a charcoal fire, they are peeled and put through the hand grinder.  This pure cocoa, which is oozing with cocoa butter, is mixed with  raw sugar, vanilla, rum and dried milk using the back of a spoon and a lot of elbow grease.  Finally, the mixture is flattened out into a cake on a wooden cutting board and cut up into pieces for us to eat.

Finished chocolate ready to eat

This was one of my favorite chocolates of the trip because I knew it was made fresh – right in front of me – and because it felt more like I was eating a food than a candy - with all its luscious cocoa fat, a bit of smokiness, and chewy-crunchy texture.  The guide told us we could have as much as we wanted…and we did.  The tour ends with a parting gift – a couple of rum-flavored truffles made from their hand-ground chocolate.

Back home now with sunburns healed and all of our chocolate from Costa Rica eaten, I’m going to raid my stash for some Theo Chocolate single-origin Costa Rica bars and see what kind of memories it brings back.

For basic information about this tour  including cost and driving directions, see this summary of chocolate tours in the area.

Notes:

[1] The standard tour includes an indigenous peoples museum, but we were short on time, so we skipped it.

[2] I paid for the tour and all chocolate myself.

Searching for Chocolate in Costa Rica: Day 3 – Tsitu Ue Cocoa House

A small pod and flower growing outside the cocoa house

I woke up this morning to a reliable alarm clock of singing jungle birds and told my wife that I’m going out jogging on the gravel roads around town.  She quickly reminded me: “you hate running.”  So,without any further thought or discussion, I discarded the idea and started to formulate a Plan B.   Today I would save my energy for a swim at a tropical waterfall and a visit to the home of an indigenous family making a rustic, traditional chocolate in small batches.

The Tsitu Ue Cocoa House sits just 15-20 minutes north of Puerto Viejo in the village of Hone Creek.  One of the family members showed us their lone cacao tree, explained about some other native plant materials and brought us through an explanation of how chocolate is made according to old traditions in this coastal Costa Rican region.   After a visit to the cacao tree, we stepped inside for a demonstration of chocolate making including a smattering of indigenous culture and history.

One of the family members explains how chocolate is made the traditional way

They didn’t actually make a batch of chocolate while we were there (at least not for our small group), but they did show us the materials and demonstrated some of the steps.  Unlike some other tours, they cut open a cacao pod and let us  have a bean covered with sweet white pulp – a familiar but rare experience for me – tasting a citrus-sweet pulp surrounding a bitter raw bean.

The demonstration provided an interesting perspective on the simplicity of the old, traditional ways vs. the new ways of chocolate making aided by machines.  For example, a modern winnower is a machine that occupies at least half a room and is designed to blow the husk off the beans while breaking it up into bits.  To achieve the same result, our guide placed the roasted beans inside a small burlap sack and smartly whacked them with a stick to break them up and loosen the husks.  Then she put them on a carved wooden tray and tossed them in the air while pulling the tray away so that the lighter husks floated to the dirt floor while the heavier nibs (bits of bean) fell back to the tray.  I wouldn’t want to make 100 kilos of chocolate this way, but the simplicity of the old method was beautiful to see.

Some materials for making chocolate

After the chocolate-making demo, we tasted some samples.  The family might be getting a little bored of all this after a few decades because they seemed to be venturing into increasingly ”creative” flavor combinations from chocolate mixed with ginger to nutmeg, cardamom, coffee, Cos,  and others I can’t remember.  Most of the flavors were quite nice, so we bought a small assortment along with some cocoa butter and roasted beans.  When I got back to the house, I decide to try the “pure” unflavored version so I could  get a feel for the base chocolate.  First, you have to get beyond the coarse, unrefined texture because that’s what traditional chocolate is all about – I have no problems with that.  Putting that aside, this “pure” chocolate turned out to be sugar-free.  Although their sample in the “store” was pleasant enough, the stuff I bought was harsh, bitter almost inedible.  The aroma was of strong burnt coffee, nutmeg and roasted nuts.  The cocoa butter was notably absent leaving a dry, astringent bitter old nugget that ends in acrid wood.  Sorry guys; this stuff was either old or not what I tasted at the Cocoa House.  The other flavors that I bought, especially coffee, were fine.

Still, it was all about the experience of learning more about chocolate and that much was completely satisfying and something that I would recommend without hesitation.

For more information on how to find the house, please see my previous post.

Searching for Chocolate in Costa Rica: Day 2 – Echo Books and Chocolate Lounge

Echo Books Cocles, Costa Rica

At the end of the dirt road where we are staying, within walking distance, is a small bookshop and “lounge” called Echo Books.  It’s got a decent collection of new and used books such as travel guides, Costa Rica guides, fiction and magazines.  They also have a trade-in deal where you get store credit when you bring in your finished beach reads.  Beyond books, there’s  free WiFi, coffee, hot chocolate and handmade chocolate.

After trying a sample in the store, I was convinced to buy a large bar of dark chocolate.  They handed me a bar just pulled out of the fridge, the only reasonable thing to do in a tropical jungle environment despite the air conditioning, and after chatting with the owner a bit, I ran back to the bungalow to give it a taste.

Echo Books is clearly working in small batch to make this single origin dark chocolate. The packaging tells it all without telling much.

By the time I got back here, there was plenty of condensation on the wrapper and the bar had already started to soften into a glorious mess, but what do you expect for 85F+  and high humidity.  It didn’t matter because the stuff is quite impressive for such a small operation.  Now,  I’m eating slices off the end of my jackknife, not because I’m standing deep in the jungle, but because I’m enjoying this chocolate too much to get off the porch,  walk into the bungalow and get a proper knife.  Besides, we can sit here and watch birds and giant blue butterflies fly through the yard 10 feet away.

Here are some impressions on what I’m tasting.

WHAT:  Echo Dark Chocolate 70% Cacao. About 75g.  Ingredients: Since the label contains no information, I’m guessing organic dark chocolate (cacao beans / cacao solids / cacao liquor) sugar, cacao butter, cocoa.  From the texture and flavor, I don’t believe there was any soy lecithin nor vanilla.

I’m neither surprised nor disturbed to see bloom on this bar that was starting to soften in a bath of tropical air. The aroma was a potent mix of coffee, leather and florals, intensified by the heat.

WHEN:  February 18, 2011

OVERALL RATING:  81.

AROMA:  This is obviously fresh stuff with intense coffee, leather, and espresso notes mixed with more subtle lavender and rose.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:  Buttered toast, brown sugar.

MIDDLE TASTE:  Blueberry, butter, almonds, lavender.

FINISH:  Brown sugar, molasses, nuts, cappuccino, and finally – bread & butter.  No bitter or off notes.

TEXTURE:  Smooth with moderately fine grain.  There is no way I can talk about snap or whether it was well-tempered or not since it quickly became soft and pliable in the heat.

Where to buy:  for now they are only available in the shop – Echo Books, Cocles, Costa Rica.  Pass through the town of Puerto Viejo, heading south.  About 1 mile after you leave the busiest stretch of Puerto Viejo,  turn right down the unpaved road just before  Om Yoga.  There is a small sign directing you to Echo Books.  Hours:  11- dark Wednesday to Sunday.  Accessable by car, bike, scooter, or foot.

Grab a coffee, sit outside on their patio under a thatch roof and check your email.

LAST BITE – Eating this bar was proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover.  An impressive effort aided in part by freshness  – I have to give a strong thumbs up to these guys.

The owner told me the cacao comes from a farm inland that is organic and almost has their fair-trade certification.  It’s great to see not only the cacao industry in Costa Rica bouncing back after a fungus devastated the trees in the late 70′s , but it’s also catching right up to the modern day with organic and fair trade operations.

How to get there: to Puerto Viejo and neighboring Cocles and Playa Chiquita:  Fly to San Jose International Airport.  You have a number of options to get down to Puerto Viejo:

Rent a Car:  Having a car in Puerto Viejo is not essential, but very useful since there are a variety of beaches and wildlife preserves to explore.  Your alternative is to do a lot of biking or walking and use paid tours to shuttle you around.  With a car you can make your own schedule and save your energy for the waves.

After leaving customs, you will find the rental car agencies.  We had a horrible time with Economy Rental Car.  They said they would wait for us, but they gave away our car, the last car,  by the time we arrived at midnight leaving us standing around with two tired young kids in tow.

We stayed in San Jose for one night and then negotiated with Economy on the phone the next day. After hanging up on us twice and speaking to us in a semi-belligerent manner, they said they would find us a car if we went to their city rental office.  After another taxi ride and an additional one and a half hours of negotiation with my wife and I taking turns in tag-team fashion, we got a 4-wheel drive for nearly 50% above the original reservation price.  This is part of the adventure I’d rather skip, so pay a little more and go with a better rental company from the start.

From San Jose, head south on route 32 towards Limon.  The highway entrance is not easy to find, so get good directions from the rental agency and be prepared to stop and ask (you can find enough people who know English in the city).  I personally would not start this trip in the dark. Travel 158 KM to Limon and be prepared to drive slowly over mountain passes on often pot-holed roads.  This will take some time, so chill out.

When you are nearly to the center of Limon, you will see a sign for “Puerto Viejo” and “Cocles. ” Take this right and expect a few one-lane bridges along the way.  There is one Y-junction that is unmarked where you should bear left.  Beyond that, just keep on straight and you will know when you have reached Puerto Viejo by the abundance of well-lit restaurants, bars, shops and inns.  Puerto Viejo is something like one hour from Limon.  Maybe less.

Taxi or limo:  as you exit the airport, you will be ambushed by guys telling you that you cannot go out the door with the luggage carts, but they are happy to move your bags on their dollies.  Of course, they will move them about 30 feet to the curb and ask for a tip.  So, unless you see this as some form of charity, politely and forcefully say ”no thanks.”  The official taxi drivers will move your bags for you and you are already going to tip them.   Just before the exit doors, there is a taxi window where you can arrange a cab downtown, for instance, if you arrive at night and need a place to rest before heading south.

Taking a taxi all the way to Puerto Viejo would be very expensive, but you should be able to hire a shuttle service for $100-$200 depending upon how many people are in your party (this a rough estimate – we were quoted $190 for 3 adults and two children).

Public Bus:  This is probably the least expensive route, but I can’t recommend it since it looks uncomfortable and I’m not sure if they stop much. It’s there as an option if you are travelling light.

Once you’re in Puerto Viejo, it’s possible to rent a car, bikes, scooters and maybe a 4-wheel ATV.  Bikes are a popular way to get around on the pot-hole-laden roads and not much slower than driving a car.

In a later post, I’ll give more information on where to stay and what to see in Puerto Viejo.

Notes:

[1] I paid for this chocolate myself.

[2] Day 1, 2, 3… are not necessarily calendar days, just days I found chocolate.

[3] I was unable to sort out what operations they are doing at Echo Books to “make” the chocolate, but this is not bean-to-bar.