Costa Rica Best Chocolate — Attraction in Puerto Viejo

Very interesting and enlightening tour! I was the only visitor due to low season, and the tour operators offered me basically an individual tour for a small extra fee. My guide was very knowledgeable and articulate person, he explained in great detail the history of cacao/chocolate production, current status, problems associated with it, such as that nasty Monilia fungus, showed me different varieties of cocoa trees and fruits growing right there, then brought me to a little chocolate workshop hidden in the fores, where he and a lady assistant showed me the whole 5-stage process of producing the real home-made chocolate. They also offered me to taste all the intermediate products starting from raw seeds, to demonstrate how the great taste of real chocolate progresses along the way. I filmed everything with a GoPro camera and showed the footage to my family in the U.S. Nedless to say, my whole family was very impressed by the stunning revelations I received during the tour. I would highly recommend this tour to anyone interested in cacao, chocolate,...

A conservation based cacao cooperative of sorts. Cacao is sourced from regional farmers who are paid a fair price for their partially processed cacao. Adolfo aka "Fofo", his wife and daughter then process the cacao closer to traditional processes for sale to the public and in addition hold free conservation based courses once a month fo local farmers covering topics such as global climate change and the like. They put on entertaiing and interactive day or night chocolate history and making lessons with lots of chances to taste. My favorite was the grinded cacao mixed with 10% sugar and a touch of cinnamon. My hot chocolate preference was with vanilla, black and cayenne pepper and nutmeg. Cocoa butter runs $7USD for a small portion(free samplings), yet the chocolate nibs and powder in larger bags at $5USD were reasonable as were the bars at $3USD. This is a familial operation, lighthearted and...

I had the privilege to have a tour by myself and learned so much about cocoa, how it grows, gets pollinated and processed. Geiner, my ‘personal’ tour guide, is passionate about conservation and weaves the story of chocolate effortlessly into the overall conservation effort of this area that is dominated by forest clearing for monoculture (bananas and pineapple plantations). I learned about chocolate production and can now distinguish between a quick fermented bitter tasting one and a smooth bitter chocolate that was allowed the traditional seven days fermentation to reach optimum. And I tasted so much chocolate to learn the difference that I think I won’t have to eat for the rest of the week! Also: frogs. Butterflies. It’s worth going if you...