In the southern reaches of the Amazon basin along Bolivia’s Rio Beni grows a rare, wild cacao. Massive trees are found along the riverbanks, where their fruits are gathered by cacao “hunters” who travel by boat in search of this rarity. The pods of this unique genotype of cacao are very small, some not larger than a lemon. Hidden inside them, tiny cacao beans hold surprising flavors of plum, jasmine, banana, and nuts. Through much effort, we managed to procure a small lot of this coveted cacao silvestre, worthy of a limited edition release. As with all of our chocolate, this bar contains only two ingredients – cacao beans and cane sugar – delivering a pure, undiluted expression of this extraordinary cacao. We hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor.

This bar bar is made with cacao from Rio Caribe. Rio Caribe is a select grade fully fermented Trinitario cacao from the area of the Paria Peninsula in Sucre State. The Paria Peninsula is located in far eastern Venezuela and nearly touches Trinidad. This incidentally is also the area where all of the regions oil operations are located. This particular lot is from a single estate, and one of the oldest family-owned cacao businesses in Venezuela. As a matter of fact, I have been told that this is more or less the only exporter that has not been ruined in recent years. I have been in direct contact with the owners for all of these months and am really glad to finally be working with them. We will be the first company in the US to put out a single origin Rio Caribe bar. To the best of my knowledge there is only one other company in the world doing a single origin of this variety (Domori). As with the other current bars, this bar will be a 70%. The flavors of this cocoa are really fun! There are really forward cocoa and coffee flavors, then deep dairy and nut flavors, and hints oranges and spices.