Chocolate of the Day:Agouti Cacao Farm
Drinking chocolate (stoneground)
Good +
Weight: 3 oz. (85 g.) (estimate) for 1 bag
Calories: 300 calories (estimate) for 2 cups (added honey)
Cost: $4.00 (estimate) BZ dollars for 1 bag
Purchased from: Agouti Cacao Farm, San Pedro Colombia Village, Belize
Today I savored the last bit of chocolate that I'd brought back from a trip to Belize last month, following a visit to Agouti Cacao Farm (in San Pedro Colombia Village) in Southern Belize.
I added boiling water to the contents of this small bag of organic, unsweetened, stoneground cacao paste, and stirred it up thoroughly with some orange blossom honey. The smell, slightly smokey from roasted cacao beans and allspice berries over a comal (hot plate over a fire), brought me back to Agouti Cacao Farm, run by Eladio Pop and family, where I'd enjoyed a cacao farm tour and tasting. (Eladio and his family were featured in a documentary, called "The Chocolate Farmer" a few years ago.*)I poured some of this deliciously rich drinking chocolate into a traditional cup (from Belize), and a drinking gourd from Agouti Cacao Farm. On the gourd were carved a woodpecker, a squirrel and an agouti -- all three have been known to nibble on fruit and seeds found in cacao pods.
The only unfortunate thing about today's cacao is that you may have to travel to Southern Belize to enjoy this. I hope that some of you will have the chance to do so. There is a lot to see and experience in the Toledo District of Belize, an area where some Mayan farmers, like Eladio are still growing cacao, using traditional methods going back thousands of years.
*Note: I highly recommend the documentary about Eladio Pop and his farm and family, called "The Chocolate Farmer" directed by Rohan Fernando (2011) (available on Amazon, and other sources).
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