Peru

19 Oct

For the first Lucid blog post, I’ve decided to answer and delve deep into one of the questions we have been asked consistently since our inception. The short of it; Why Peru? Truthfully, the answer is more complicated than I often make it out to be. Some of it is inherently subjective and other aspects are non-negotiable. The truth is that it's a story about quality and companionship, and since it gets asked so often I wanted to take the time to answer it in my own words.

If you want the short answer to the story before I break it down, the reason we chose Peru is because I very much view it as the Mecca of organic cacao cultivation. Simply put, almost anything a chocolate maker can get their hands on from Peru is of the highest quality. Heirloom genetics run rampant across the country, nearly everything is organic, the variation in geographic locations and microclimates is unparalleled, and the people there have been farming cacao for generations. It is a part of their culture, their history, and they have somewhat of an intrinsic connection to cacao.

It should be noted that I didn’t start Lucid with the intention of restricting it to the exploration of origins within a single country. After all, what do the borders of a country on a map have to do with saying whether the beans are any good or not? Surely beans from neighbouring South American countries are good too, right? And surely places far away have great offerings too, like Madagascar and India, right?

Naturally the answer to these questions is yes, but the world of cacao bean sourcing sadly isn’t as easy as cherry-picking the best origins from around the world and having them turn up on your doorstep. Logistics, and massive spikes in shipping costs have made things much harder for the average chocolate maker to organise, meaning unless you are ordering metric tonnes of origins at a time, it can be very difficult to get the beans you want to use. Due to this, chocolate makers will often team up and order together from an origin, or why middlemen businesses such as Meridian Cacao or Uncommon Cacao have succeeded in offering a variety of origins from different countries to makers around the world.

When I was committing to bean to bar chocolate making, my mind was not fully set on Peru. I decided to source as many samples from around the world as possible, and to conduct a critical analysis, roasting and making all of them into chocolate before committing. I ended up working with nearly 30 origins during this phase, long before anything was available to the public. Some highlights for me were the Maya Mountain from Belize with its potent chocolatey profile, Sambirano Madagascar with its fruitiness, and India Anamali which completely blew me away.

Peru was not yet on my radar until the shipment of beans turned up from Trade-Aid with some commodity cacao from the Norandino Co-op in Peru. This was the most expensive bean of theirs, and I was intrigued. They didn’t look like spectacular beans, and I found them difficult to work with. Once I understood how they needed to be roasted and conched however, I felt a real connection to the bean. Furthermore, after going down a YouTube rabbit-hole late one night, I discovered an email address on a video with less than 500 views, on places to source cacao beans from. The email address was for my now good-friend and supplier Marco from Cacao-Life in Peru. Once we got talking, I was interested. He sent me 3 samples, one from VRAE in Southern Peru, one from Awajún in Northwestern Peru, and one from Piura which I expected to be the same as what I already had here.

When the beans arrived I was immediately drawn to their quality. All 3 samples were a beautiful deep red, well-fermented, and possessed intoxicating aromas in their dried form. I was in total awe of how different they were to what I had previously been receiving, and the quality across the board was breathtaking. Truth be told, I was unable to make good chocolate with the samples at that time as my skills on chocolate making were very much under development, but I could see the potential. After completing my analysis of the origins from around the world, the 3 samples from Peru were in my top 5, and I felt like the answer on what to do was looming in front of me. No Kiwi chocolate makers were pushing the boat out on single country exploration, and examples internationally were limited. There were however a few things stopping me from diving in headfirst at this stage, namely:

- the price of Peruvian cacao being sky high

- the flavours of the beans I sampled were very far from what you typically associate with chocolate

The price of the beans I was getting were nearly 3x as much as some other samples, and unlike my analysis, the 3 Peruvian beans were in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in terms of raw ingredient expense. For context, commodity cacao is known to have been as cheap as $1.00-$2.00USD per kg, and these beans could be anywhere from roughly $7-13USD per kg before shipping. I knew if I went for Peruvian cacao, my chocolate would have to be expensive, perhaps the most expensive, and I wasn’t sure that people would be ready for it. On top of this, the New Zealand domestic craft chocolate scene is still developing and comparatively small compared to the rest of the world. With Peruvian flavour profiles being so unique and charismatic, I wasn’t sure that the average craft chocolate consumer would be taken by what they have to offer so soon.

At this point in time, the maths and figures weren’t lying, it would be a safer business model to work with well known origins, and to follow other businesses’ paths to success, but there were a few factors not yet covered which ultimately forced my hand in the decision to choose Peru.

As I’m sure many of you reading this may know, the cacao industry is one that is rife with inhumane practices. Mostly driven by the industrialisation of chocolate during the industrial revolution, and the monopoly of its production by a few big companies. Demand for cacao at dirt cheap prices has created an industry full of smoke and mirrors, lacking both honesty and compassion. When you have companies who brand themselves around being slave-free, only to have child slave labour workers discovered in their supply chain MULTIPLE times in close proximity, you know something isn’t right.

Craft chocolate is about being transparent. It's about paying farmers fairly for their beans, and ultimately celebrating the journey cacao takes from its place of origin, through to its final steps in the hands of the maker. What Marco and Cacao-Life are doing is absolutely on-par with where I want to see the chocolate world heading. Farmers in Peru are extremely hard-working and dedicated. They produce quality, organic beans with unique terroir and genetics. They are paid fairly for their work, and are masters at working with the land, not abusing it. Yes, the beans and subsequently the chocolate will be expensive, but if that's what it takes to produce a quality bar of chocolate then so be it.

In summary, I decided to work with Peruvian origins because:

- They have unique and distinctive flavour flavour profiles

- There are a variety of heirloom genetics found there and nowhere else, such as Chuncho’s - Farmers farm organically and partner plant with other species to retain biodiversity - Their fermentation techniques are incredibly advanced comparatively to other countries - Farmers are paid well above fair-trade minimum standards

- Peru possesses an incredible amount of geographical diversity, allowing for variety across origins

- Transparency

- Good relationships with the suppliers

Thank you for reading, if there are any topics you would like to hear more about, click the link below to get in touch and let us know!