Hāmākua Chocolate Farm — Attraction in Hawaii

This is by far the most diverse and interesting farm tour I’ve ever been to! The tour is branded as a chocolate farm tour, but it’s really a cocoa + vanilla + coffee bean + botanical garden + spices + treehouse + riverside + black bamboo + white pineapple + crazy camouflage trees with the name that I can’t remember ...etc. tour. Dan and Berndt own this huge property and are both so passionate and knowledgeable about every single exotic plant they have. They introduced at least 10+ plants, explained the growing process, showed us the chocolate-making process from bean to a chocolate bar, and let us taste not only the fresh cocoa products but also different types of fruits from their passion projects along the way. We also got a bunch of leaves to crush and smell. The craziest one is cinnamon! We got our own leaf to chew and taste the cinnamon straight from the wood!!!

The chocolate tasting is very sanitary that we got our own cute bamboo thongs to take the chocolate. I also like the cacao juice a lot! The amenities are pretty awesome! The bathrooms are clean and they provided sunscreen and bug spray for guests. Don’t feel shy to use them!! I sprayed my shoes thinking it is enough but was attacked by a swamp of mosquitos during the tour (had to make Berndt run back and get the bug spray for us SORRY AND THANK U!) In short, they are very considerate and provided everything we need to do this tour comfortably! The tour is also a bit of a hike with a few safety precaution (e.g. they have an electric fence for boar; you need to walk through a wobbly bridge to climb up the tree house with both hands), so make sure that you talk to Dan and Berndt about your health condition before you confirm the tour so you don’t get hurt!

Personally, I’m so amazed that they are able to manage everything. A botanical garden + farm + mini factory + Airbnb...it’s so labor intensive and organized by pretty much just the two of them. The whole farm runs very systematically (aka pay attention to the name and the position of the spices plants; they cut out the middle of the bamboo bush so you can step in, look up, and enjoy the view), which is incredibly cool and satisfying for me! I wish I have more pictures to show but my phone died half way!

In conclusion, you will definitely enjoy your stay or tour here. It's pricy but...

We were staying on the farm for a couple of days and also had a privilege to be a part of farm tour Dan and Berndt run on regular basis there. Stay: we had a room with ocean view and were waking up every morning with a killer sunrises which we were enjoying in a comfort of our bed. There is a lot of thought put in the room design, where everything is very nice looking and unique, but at the same time very practical. I really appreciated the personal touch of fresh tropical flowers were put everywhere in the room. The huge palm trunk and some exotic looking plant bouquet made me doubt for a moment if it is real or not, but it was! Décor was beautiful, bed was comfortable, window was huge and i slept like a baby. We had access to the whole farm grounds and enjoyed exploring it (there is a tree house, stream, lots of exotic plants and cacao trees and some ducks hanging around). If we're on the big island again - this is the place i would want to return to Tour: the whole stay was a highlight of our trip, but tour was definitely a cherry on a top. Interactive, where you can not only see cacao fruit growing on the tree, but also taste it and see the whole bean to bar process. Tropical garden is so much more magical when you not only see the plants, but also hear the stories about and behind them. 2.5 hours just flew by. And chocolate tasting at the end! My favorite was chocolate with chai spices from the farm garden.10 out of 5 But most importantly hosts: Dan and Berndt, thank you so much for your hospitality! Special thanks for the bread fruit in fresh form and fries form (sooo good!), tropical nuts taste opportunity and guava hunt trip (even though birds got to it first). Thanks for passion you have for what you do because this is what makes the place unique, magical and very interesting to explore and experience. We really enjoyed getting to know you, to learn about your passion and your journey (those wild pigs!) and just your company in general. I wish you a great success and to find more of those unique chocolate flavors you're experimenting with. Meanwhile we'll have some great chocolate we got home to enjoy, so we can remember our stay and make cloudy Seattle a bit more...

The tour of Hamakua Chocolate Farm exceeded our expectations. I am a local from Oahu and have previously done a different wonderful farm tour, and wanted to experience either a coffee or chocolate farm during our trip to Hilo. Knowing this, I knew I wanted to choose something that really went in depth rather than being a broad overview of a bunch of different farm projects, as well as a chocolate tasting experience and Hamakua Chocolate farm delivered. Berndt and Dan have a wealth of experience between them. The approach they take to the farm is part-Naturalist, part-Scientist, part-Historian. We tasted a total of 13 different chocolates, including some flavors I've never seen before - Li Hing Mui, nutmeg (the fruit of the nutmeg, not just the spice as I understand it), and candied ginger. Basically everything is produced at the farm itself, and you get to sample a ton of different fruits and smell different plants throughout the tour of the botanical garden. One of the things I most appreciate is that the farm has cacao trees that are genetically distinct - a refreshing approach to big agriculture. The pair run the operation by themselves, and there are a LOT of steps in the chocolate making process, so I feel like it made me appreciate the finished bar more. At $15 a bar, it seems expensive, but after seeing the care, love, and attention that go into making it happen, we were happy to give what support we can and felt great about supporting small. I will be recommending this farm and their tour to everyone else I know...