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Hello everyone,

For quite some time now, Ive been in love and fascinated with theobroma cacao, the plant. Whose seed was once used as currency in pre-columbian civilizations in South America I live in Puerto Rico, one of the places the Spanish conquistadors brought seeds and and started commercial production in the 17th century. Historical records show that along with ginger, cacao was the main agricultural crop at that time.

In that same century, the archipelago was hit by a hurricane that affected the crops. Because of food shortages, farmers had to abandon cacao. Almost three centuries later, generations of those original trees, (some people speculate that some naturalized varieties are related to Venezuelas porcelanas), remain hidden at old farms.

It is a fascinating story, but not the one we would like to read on history books and remember with nostalgia. Together with other initiatives, we would like to be part of the resurgence of cacao production in Puerto Rico.

Not any cacao, but one of the finest, social and environmentally responsible in the world.

Ive setup a kickstarter campaign to help us accelerate the plans to bring back Puerto Ricos cacao heritage and reboot commercial production. In addition to the traditional ways of helping us we also are accepting the most popular cryptocurrencies.

We've set up a series of rewards for different pledge levels, including final artisan bars, dehydrated cacao pods (for souvenir or educational purposes) , adopt-a-tree program, and other items that you may find of your liking.

Were open to suggestions and any questions you may have.

You can find more details of the story and our plan at the official campaign clicking the image below :

25 Years in chocolate and pastry business , i design pastry and chocolate and design Special Machinery i have more than 180 customers around the world , i give ideas and know how , sometime recipe , i help to provide chefs , machines . material , to share you any question in business start up even mechanical or electrical problems in your machine

i hope i get good friends from this site since i belong to this business and chocolate life

Amsterdam is not only an extremely pretty city. It also offers some great options for chocolate lovers and its chocolate scene was growing fast during the last few years, so I now list the best Amsterdam chocolate locations on my blog . There are many very decent chocolatiers and some really excellent ones. There is a fantastic chocolate bar shop specialized in high quality single origin chocolates. There are even two local bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers (Chocolatemakers + Metropolitan). Further, there is a growing number of annual chocolate events and meetings such as Chocoa or the Origin Chocolate Event .

Certainly worth a visit I'd say

Here's for example the city's chocolatiers:

Metropolitan

My personal Amsterdam favorite. Pretty reductionist design and made from great own bean-to-bar chocolate and with fantastic ganache fillings. Try the Jalapeno or the Mandarin or the Lemon Yes!

Patisserie Kuyt

Arguably the finest of Amsterdams more traditional styled bonbons. The pleasantly small sized bonbons look like they come right from a confectioners textbook. And they taste great!

Van Velzes

Sympathetic small chocolatier in Amsterdam Oost making pretty and very decent pralines. Van Velze doesnt pretend to be fancy and revolutionary and sticks to traditional style ganache fillings of very good quality. Definitely worth it!

Puccini Bomboni

Many people rave about Puccinis bonbons. I dont, they are far too big and massive for my liking. But they clearly do look good and have nice flavor combinations. Their bonbons are handmade in Amsterdam and are sold at three different locations in the city center.

Unlimited Delicious

Used to be a place to also look for unconventional pralines. That is much less the case right now. Still, their bonbons are well-made and worth a try. Then again, I find the flavors too timid, too much aiming at everybodys convenience. But try their classic, the Rosemary-Sea-salt and youll see what they are capable of.

Patisserie Holtkamp

Pragmatic Dutch bonbons. Not impressive looking, but then tasting so much better than expected. Fine taste and very traditional flavor combinations. And be warned you will have a hard time not also taking one of their many pastries along as soon as you enter their shop.

Madame Pompadour

You like the good old bonbon and dont feel like trying those new-fashioned samples with stuff like Jalapeno (Metropolitan) or Rozemary seasalt (Unlimited delicious) flavors? Right. Nothing wrong with that. Just traditional, handmade, fine chocolates? Madame Pompadour might look like the ideal place for that. And it is indeed not bad, but I somehow prefer the classic flavored bonbons from Kuyt, Holtkamp, or Van Velze.

ChocoVivo , just ten minutes east of Venice, is the first bean to bar chocolate manufacturer Ive found in LA.

For the full story (including taste-testing!) come on over to The Chocolate Tourist blog .

Maybe not! Listing common ingredients in "chocolate" that could be inducing symptoms. Do you or a friend suffer from the following?

It's all at The Chocolate Tourist blog .

Potomac is thefirst chocolate maker I ever interviewed. My friend Valerie and I met Ben Rasmussen and got to watchhim make chocolate. From scratch.

A one-man bean to bar maker with a childlike joy in the process of making good chocolate!

Read the rest right here!

As I have since 2007 I am once again researching theobromine and caffeine in cacao.

Starting with this study:

"HPLC Determination of Methylxanthines and Polyphenols Levels In Cocoa and Chocolate Product"

http://www.ukm.my/mjas/v7_n2/14Nazaruddin.pdf

I am going to add to this as I go along and learn more so I will warn you in advance that it will be rambling and not very well organized. Someday I hope to have my conclusions more organized.

Excerpt from the abstract:

"imported chocolate, the mean theobromine and caffeine levels respectively were 1.05 mg/g and 0.12 mg/g in dark chocolate; 0.76 mg/g and 0.04 mg/g in milk chocolate; and 0.74 mg/g and 0.03 mg/g in white chocolate"

Questions:

1) what does "imported" refer to?

2) What is the percentage of the cacao in this "dark" chocolate? Certainly the higher the percentage the greater the amount of theobromine.

3) How does white chocolate have any theobromine in it?

Disclaimer: I have not yet read the whole article, so these questions may already be answered there.

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Also learning more about theobromine from "Theobromine" at

http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol51/mono51-12.pdf

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Will post this now and add more later...

Please feel free to comment, and especially to add references to any definitive studies that you know of.

Cacao is endemic in the locality of Maria Aurora. In the neighborhood of Brgy. Diaat alone, cacao trees are grown in backyards. I was even shown of one resilient and abundantly fruiting cacao that is precariously thriving on a rocky ground on one end of the bridge just on top of its abutment. The tree appears like dangling on a cliff above the rushing water. In other locations close by the river are some tall cacao trees that are intercropped with coconut and other trees. The trees are more than five years old and showing some of the common cacao diseases.

So what was the inspiration for setting up the farm? Below is a quote from Mr. Fabros:

Fabros Farm'spioneering spirit and noble goal of providing livelihood to the people of their barangay is laudable. Despite the many challenges and their lack of experience, the family enterprise make up for it with their collective effort and enthusiasm to see to it that their venture succeed. With its humongous size Fabros Farm is not just a cacao farm but a cacao forest full of potentials.

Read more here - http://pinoychocophile.blogspot.com/2014/05/fabros-farm-more-than-just-cacao-farm.html

I tried many times make chocolate ,it will not come solid stage.it's coming liquid.whenever i kept outsite of freezer will come liquid stage.How to make solid stage.Please advice to me.

Have you seen the new kit for tasting chocolate by my fellow Canadian,Eagranie Yuh? At first I didn't think I needed it, but then I saw the value for both new and experienced chocolate tasters. In fact, I might include it in chocolate tasting sessions, offer it as a draw prize to participants or even include it in the price of the workshop. I've tested it out and written all about it on my blog, check it out on The Ultimate Chocolate Blog : http://ultimatechocolateblog.blogspot.ca/2014/04/the-chocolate-tasting-kit-great-way-to.html .