My Cacao Story

Written in the perspective of Gabrielle de Guzman

When I was young, I thought chocolate was a thing that just was. Meaning, I knew nothing about how it was produced. All I knew was that it was either an ingredient, or a treat in itself. I thought chocolate bars could only be made by other countries and that it was just something that I can find only in the shelves of supermarkets.

Fast forward to decades later, I found myself looking at this peculiar looking tree with colorful pods that was just a little bit taller that me. I asked my mom, who was currently getting in to organic farming, what that tree was. She told me it was Cocoa. I, in a very surprised manner answered with “Cocoa, as in chocolate?! You can grow that here?!” Although we had our fair share of Tablea and Bibingka during christmas mornings, I never knew that all this chocolate goodness came from a tree.

As my mom was starting her journey in farming, I was very curious about how cacao was processed here. And in her research she found that we used to be one of the top growers, and now we’re not even producing what we consume locally. We also saw that the Philippines have vast lands with coconut trees planted, and it was one of the ways for them to earn additional income because Cacao can be intercropped with Coconuts. Slowly, we started learning more about how to make chocolate. The roasting, the grinding, and the tempering, all of it!

When we made our first bars, we found a new dream. We wanted our kids to grow up eating Filipino chocolate. We want to make quality products that not only provide livelihood to farmers, but are so good, that people will opt for local chocolate compared to chocolate shipped from abroad. This is where we start! Thank you for sharing this dream with us.