Chocolate Farm Private Tour in Medellin: Real Genuine Experience

Medellin

The tour starts on your doorstep–we’ll pick you up in our comfortable, private vehicle from wherever you are staying in Medellín. Then the journey to the farm starts: the driving time is 1 hour on a safe, well-maintained road through beautiful, Andean mountainscapes. Upon arriving to the cacao farm, you’ll receive a warm welcome in the form of the farmers’ big smiles and a fresh organic mandarin juice. For the first part of the Chocolate Tour in Medellín farm experience, you will gain insight to the world of chocolate, discussing subjects big and small, including: The history of chocolate and its production worldwide How to maintain a healthy plantation Natural enemies of the cacao fruits and how to control them After this complete introduction, you’ll almost have enough knowledge to start your own cacao farm! For the next part of the tour, you’ll learn about the complete process for making artisanal chocolate, while touring the plantation grounds.

First Step in our Chocolate Tour in Medellin: Picking cacao in the plantation As you walk through the plantation you’ll see cacao plants in their natural form, as well as other natural local products like mandarin trees, coffee plants, plantain trees and more. You’ll even get to use tools to pick the cacao from the trees. Second Step: Fermenting and Drying the cacao seeds After picking ripe cacao fruits, we’ll head back to the farm for the next step: fermenting. To ferment the cacao, we need to cut the fruit and extract the seeds. You’ll also get a chance to try the raw chocolate fruit which is deliciously sweet. Once we’ve opened the fruit, we pour the seeds into wooden containers to ferment for six days. After fermenting, the cacao then needs to be dried. To dry the fermented cacao, we either use a green house that we call Marquesina or by just spreading them out on the ground to dry in the sun.

Depending on the weather, the cacao will dry for 2-4 days. After drying, the cacao is then ready to be roasted. Roasting, grinding and packaging the chocolate: On our farm, we roast the chocolate in a very artisanal way, using a simple pot on a wood fire, that, after stirring it for about 30 minutes, gives it an amazing subtle woody flavor. After roasting the cacao beans, we remove the husk and manually separate them. Once the beans are husk-free they are ready to be ground and melted. At this point, we can add in some natural seeds to give the chocolate different premium flavors. Natural flavors we might add include: mandarin skin, rice, sugar cane, chia, quinoa, and peanuts. Have an idea for a new chocolate flavor? We’re always experimenting with new combinations, so let us know and we’ll test it out. As a result of the friction from the artisanal grinder, the cacao beans melt, leaving us with our final product.