Port Potager

The last time we talked about chocolate , we saw how it grows, and how the Bribrí people of Costa Rica ferment and dry the beans in the traditional way. The next step is the roasting of the cocoa beans: This, according to our host, Priscilla, is done in very small batches — only three kilos at a time. The beans are placed into a pot over open flame and stirred while they roast to make sure that they are evenly heated and none end up burnt. They start out a reddish brown color, but they are dark brown by the time they are finished: At this point, they smell just like what we are used to — good and chocolatey. Once the beans are cool, they are placed in a burlap sack and crushed with a heavy pole. When poured out of the sack and back into a bowl, the chaffy bits encasing the bean blow away, leaving behind whole and crushed cocoa beans: The crushed beans are then run through a mill, which removes any remaining chaff and grinds them into a paste: The paste c...

While staying in the small town of Cahuita on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, I visited a small cacao farm just to the southwest of Puerto Viejo. This farm is called the Jungles of Talamanca, and it's owned and operated by a Bribrí family who offers tours and tastings of the chocolate they make by hand. Blink and you could miss the sign: The Bribrí is an indigenous group of people who have lived along the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica since pre-Columbian times. They live on reservation lands, although many also have inter-married into the local community. Their language is now taught in all schools within the reservation's limits, along with Spanish and English. According to our host, Priscilla, one reason that the Bribrí culture has remained largely intact is that when Spanish missionaries arrived to convert them, the missionaries decided that many Bribrí purification rituals were similar to those in the Old Testament. Although the missionaries stressed that purif...