Our Bean-to-Bar Stories
One of the best things about bean-to-bar chocolate making is that each and every one of our cacaos has a long history, some even dating back thousands of years. Whenever we select a new cacao variety to work with, we are eager to learn the history behind the bean and how it’s been protected over the years to still be grown today. We also love to connect with the modern farmers of these ancient cacaos as their passion and knowledge about their chocolate is hugely inspiring.
They are all single-origin cacaos, meaning the chocolate you get is made with completely pure, high quality cacao which is all sourced ethically from farms around Central and Southern America and the Caribbean. It’s our mission to improve the standards in the chocolate industry and we thing the bean-to-bar method represents the biggest change any of us can make, and it benefits everyone!
Here you can find the history for each of our bean-to-bar chocolates!
Our Lachua cacao inherits its name from the area it comes from, the Lachua National Park in Guatemala. It's a region of dense rainforest, with the beautiful Lake Lachua at its centre. Cacao has been grown in this region ever since people of the Mayan Civilisation first began growing it as a crop centuries ago. Today the cacao is grown by the Q'eqchi' people, whose ancestors are the Maya who originally cultivated the cacao.
Unfortunately, the Lachua National Park has seen many incidents of illegal deforestation over the past two decades, threatening one of the most biodiverse areas of Guatemala. The park has been found to be home to over 370 different species all of which are at risk from this illegal wood chopping. Helping to support the local cacao production helps to protect the region, providing local people other avenues to make money from their land and contributing to the reforestation of the area, with over 245 hectares of new cacao planted since 2014.
Historically the Q’eqchi’ people have been substanance farmers, meaning they only grow what they need for themselves. By growing the Lachua cacao for the international market, they are helping to end poverty in one of the poorest regions of Guatemala.
Our Chuncho cacao is from the Urusayhua valley in Peru, located high in the Andes mountains near to the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu. The farmers here have been growing cacao for centuries, perhaps even since before the time of the Incan empire. In ancient times it was used to create a hot drink with milk and cinnamon. Thanks to its remote and mountainous home and the traditional values of the native people who grow it, the Chuncho cacao has remained unchanged for all this time.
The trees on which our cacao grows are over 200 years old, thanks to the expert care the local growers provide. Their farming techniques come from knowledge passed-down countless generations, and that tradition continues to this day. It's an unusual cacao as it grows at much higher altitude and in more temperate climes than most cacao varieties, which lends to its unique flavour.
With this cacao we are directly supporting the growth of cacao farming in the region, as it provides the farmers with a route-to-market that they may otherwise struggle to find, as the region is so isolated it’s incredibly hard to export large volumes of cacao from the region.
