Dominican Republic - Organic Dominican Chocolate

Organic Dominican Chocolate

The Dominican Republic is more than just a Caribbean vacation paradise. Aside from its beautiful beaches, its breath-taking sunset, and panoramic views, the Dominican Republic is currently one of the chief producers of organic cocoa in the world.

Dominican Cacao, the bean from which cocoa is derived, occasionally surpassed coffee as a source of export revenue. The Dominican cocoa industry emerged in the 1880s as a competing peasant crop, when tobacco underwent a steep price decline. Although overshadowed by sugar, cocoa agriculture enjoyed slow, but steady, growth until a period of rapid expansion in the 1970s. In 1988, four major exporters dominated the cacao industry in the Dominican Republic. The majority of the Dominican cacao production was low quality, unfermented beans that were shipped to the United States at low prices. Seven hundred small-scale farmers came together to form CONACADO with the goal of producing a higher quality cacao, directly accessing new markets, and getting better prices. Over 20 years later, this small-farmer organization has 10,000 farmer members who produce approximately 25% of the cacao exported from the Dominican Republic. The co-operative’s success in quality improvement and marketing means that the majority of their cacao has been sold as high quality fermented beans, primarily to niche markets: Organic, Biodynamic, and Fair Trade.

The best cocoa beans in the country are grown in Cibao Valley, San Francisco de Macoris, and Santiago. The actual cocoa bean is the dried and roasted seed from the cacao pod of the indigenous "Cacao tree or Cocoa Plant". Every cocoa pod contains between 20 to 50 soft almond-like beans with a purplish or reddish color. The cocoa beans may or may not be fermented before drying, roasting, and then grinding. Sugar—and optionally vanilla, cinnamon, and/or pepper—can be added to the coarsely ground cocoa mass, then molded into balls or other shapes, before cooling and hardening.