cacao – The Adventures of Elle Coco

From Bordeaux to the Bay – Coromandel Chocolate

It’s December and summertime in New Zealand, supposedly. We’re battling torrential rain as we take the winding road from Waihi to Whangamatā on the northeastern coast of the North Island, the kind of road where every corner and turn you take results in a new vista with the rain so torrential you hope your wipers can keep up. Whangamatā is a cute coastal town on the edge of the Coromandel Peninsula – surfing territory, holiday territory, the kind of place where the quintessential Kiwi bach outnumbers mansions and the sound of the ocean is never far away. Not the first place you’d expect to find a French-trained bean to bar chocolate maker, perhaps, but to Thomas Capdevielle, a keen surfer with a potent mix of salt and cacao in his blood, it couldn’t be more perfect.

‘You want to make a good chocolate, you have to make a good cacao’

After seven years living in New Zealand it was high time I visited some of the beautiful neighbouring Pacific island nations, famous for snorkelling and diving, surfing, relaxation, and more recently, cacao. Being early August it was still technically the middle of winter for New Zealand, so what better way to shake off the winter blues than head to Vanuatu for two weeks? On this beautiful Pacific archipelago we were lucky enough to meet up with a good friend of mine, Olivier Fernandez of Gaston Chocolate. He greets us with open arms at Port Vila airport, his cheeky grin and sparkling blue eyes a welcome sight after a surprisingly long trip from New Zealand.

Fly to El Salvador

After our Honduran Interlude, we made it to Central America’s smallest and most densely populated country, and the only country in the world named directly after Jesus Christ – ‘El Salvador’ translates to ‘The Saviour’ in English.

We didn’t actually fly into El Salvador though, contrary to the title of this blog post, we just caught the ‘chicken bus’ over from Honduras. But ever since listening to London indie rock band Athlete’s song lyrics to the aptly named ‘El Salvador’ on my bus journeys to school all those years ago, humming along to the lyrics “Fly to El Salvador, I don’t know why and I don’t know what for…”, I’d always had an urge to go to the place, to find out what the “what for” in the song was they were always singing about actually was.

Grow Your Own Chocolate

Since I’m fascinated with where food comes from, the next logical step in my ‘farm-to-table’ ‘bean-to-bar’ chocolate adventures was to try growing my own cacao trees…in London!

It was a challenge, with the first hurdle being to get fresh pods back from Ingemann in Nicaragua through US customs. After enduring a good hours’ worth of questioning by a typically Texan border enforcement official, the pods were let through!