Matagalpa, Finca Las Palmas

With sweat running down my brow I pushed up over the latest hill in the 20 kilometer trek through the verdant hills of the Matagalpa district of Nicaragua.

I am here trekking through the emerald landscape of the tropics chasing a dream, and as my vision cleared the hill I was climbing, that dream seemed to snap into vivid reality as a familiar looking, steep sided cerro rose majestically from the landscape.

Atop the cerro, a red flag waived in the day breeze giving the impression that a fort lay hidden under the green canopy of the tropical forest that blanketed the cerro.



walking down the drive way to a non-descript concerete house, coconut, mango, limon, orange, grapefruit, pineapple, papaya and guayaba surroung the house, and cattle can be seen in a muddy little pen.

The place is vibrant, verdent, lush...in a word....green

friendly faces greet us, and a couple of teens (Michaela and Clinton) take us on a walk about to see cerro molsun form the top of a hill.



The finca that I am visiting is a 250 Manzano (50 acres) small holding owned by a family. Finca Las Palmas is a part of the Campesina Cooperative in Matagalpa Dstrict of Nicaragua. I am visiting to learn about their gorwing techniques and to find a Criollo Variety of cacao that my chocolate mentor Sandy used to make some amazing, distinct chocolate a few years back.

As we tour around with the owners of the Farm, Don Eloy and his Grandsons, we find out a few interesting facts...some quite concerning.


As it turns out, of the 1500 cacao trees that make are grown int he shade of a little more than an acre, Don Eloy is activly selecting for a new species that produces larger fruits.
He is grafting the new species, recently arrived from who knows where, onto the older native root stocks that offer disease and draugh resistence. This is a pretty common practice in orchardry, but We came in the hopes we would be able to ask Don Eloy to sort out some of the Lower producing, but more nuanced and flavorfull Criollo fruits so we could experiment with single estate pure Criollo cacao in our artisinal, small batch chocolate production back on the Ecovilave Training Center.

After some consersation it became apparent that the switch over to higher yeilding vareities would take a few years, and during that time Don Eloy would sort his cacao into varieties (something no one in the area...and potentialy no one anywhere) is doing. The main buyer in the area is German chocolate giant Ritter Sport. They buy a very small percentage of their total cacao intake from the area, but it is one of their flag ship Fair Trade organic sources that was develooped in conuntion with the German International Development Agency. Small buyers and Chocolatiers like us are very nearly squeezed out, although through cooperation a few manage to survive and are now working towards finding the better quality and more refined vareities instead of the bulk grab bag that is purchased by Ritter Sport and other big companies.

Currently the state of cacao growing is akin to throwing all the different vareities of grapes from an entire region into one mash, and calling it red wine.

While that may produce some great table wine, for the consosour its nice to distinguish all the interesting flavors that come from different varieties and different soils.

A few crafts people and artisinal chocolate makers have made this kind of effort...but its few and far between.

As a way to boost the market price and start working towards a direct connection between consumers and producers, Sandy, Don Eloy and I all agree that starting to sort the varieties and label their origin, harvest time and names will be a good move no matter what variety he ends up choosing.

Our hope is that through continued interaction with Don Eloy and his small farm we can work towards INCREASING the varieties he grows to help buffer disease and pests, as well as provide a myriad of interesting cacao flavors form this region that has been producing wild cacao for thousands of years.