The sign on the side of the road got me. It was black, and hand-painted. “Bar on the Beach.” That’s not a sign I can easily refuse. And, unsurprisingly, I was quickly rewarded, here on one of the most intriguingly-named beaches in the Caribbean. For starters, it’s cool here. No, the mercury reads somewhere […]
By Alexander Britell “Cocoa absorbs the flavor of anything around it,” Wendy Anne tells me. That’s the thing about cocoa, the fruit whose fermented seeds are the basis for chocolate — terroir is paramount. Whether it’s mango or papaya or nutmeg, everything in a cocoa tree’s environment will end up, in some manifestation, in the bean […]
Above: Boucan by Hotel Chocolat in St Lucia (All photos by CJ) By Alexander Britell SOUFRIERE — I am a cacao grower. The sun is beaming on this morning in St Lucia. There is little shade among the leaves of Soufriere. I’ve been gathering cacao fruit (and chewing beans) and grafting cacao trees all morning. […]
Above: ki-kakaw chocolate Was this chocolate, or an ancient Mayan relief? Well, it was a bit of both. It’s called ki-kakaw, and it’s a special chocolate made in Cancun on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Ki-kakaw is branded with the Mayan symbol for cocoa, and the large, thick brick of milk chocolate is actually a relief of […]
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