January 13, 2024
Dear Clay,
My first order of business is to wish you and your family a bright and abundant New Year. Secondly, I offer my apologies as this letter is long overdue—all of my intentions to respond to your letter from November were subsumed by the herculean effort that was the Holiday Tour, which kicked off with one of my favorite chocolate bloggers—you!
In your previous Letter, you asked about my first taste of fresh cacao. I wish it were during a journey to find wild cacao in the midst of the Ecuadorian jungle—after all, people have done that—but alas, my experience took place in a much less dramatic setting. Yet still very much à propos: the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, the very same festival where you and I met. It was November 2016 as you’ll remember—I had been invited to give a talk related to my then-recently published novel. Well, after my talk I went over to listen to another speaker, and he happened to be passing out little tasting cups with fresh cacao pulp. They had shipped in cacao pods for the event, and opened them up right on the floor for us to taste.
You ask what the pulp tasted like. It transported me. I was indoors, under fluorescent lights, but that wash of flavors took me hundreds of miles away, to the cradle where cacao was born, in the lush forests of what is now South America. Where millions of years of gentle but irrepressible evolutionary forces molded and refined the astounding ocean of flavor that is cacao.
Words can only come a little close to the experience. It was exuberantly juicy and fragrant… it had citrus and apple and mango and a touch of jasmine. And sure, it was slimy as many a child would loudly proclaim, stating the bluntly obvious as children do. But so are other tropical fruits like passionfruit, lychee, and mango—the jungle doesn’t prepackage her fruits in perfectly shaped slices that crunch just so.
So that was my first time tasting fresh cacao fruit. The second time was in Kauai, Hawai’i, on a tour of a cacao farm. This is the guide who cracked open a few pods for us:
Fresh cacao is always a delight, but that first time was the most memorable, the most intense. Isn’t that so with so many “first times” … your first kiss, your first scuba dive, your first airplane flight solo. Not every first time is pleasant of course, and many of us have many “first times” we’d rather forget… the first public speech, the first job interview, the first downhill ski run—as an adult.
But chocolate gives you multiple first times, because every bar is so different. Cacao pulp also varies in taste—and I would love to hear more about the fruit pulp tastings you experienced Clay, on your various travels! But the variety of chocolate bars is exponentially greater, because of the innumerable ways the beans can be fermented and roasted, and the bars crafted. I’ve had the blessing to taste bars, truffles, and bon bons I never imagined were possible, but still, among those, certain experiences stand out. There was the truffle that tasted like the Indian dish biryani. There was the special batch of heirloom chocolate made by the HCP at an FCIA event in 2016, which was like a flower garden blooming on my palate. There was—because of course there was—the Mojito Bar by Coco Jolie, which was even better than the drink.
But the bar that stands out in most recent memory is Sorrel White Chocolate by One / One Cacao in Jamaica. I met Nick Davis, the owner, at this past NW Chocolate Festival. I was at his booth on the last day of the festival, with a friend and her mom, just chatting. Nick had me try the Sorrel White Chocolate. I raised an eyebrow in curiosity at first, because the chocolate was not light in color. It was decidedly dark:
The moment it landed on my tongue felt like a liquid explosion of tang. Sorrel, of course, is in the hibiscus family—and that red tangy lemony hibiscus flavor is infused all through this bar.
It made such an impression that I included it in our Holiday Tour, on Day 22 (with some fun imaginary dialogue by Nick).
You’ve tasted a lot more chocolate than I have, Clay—what are some of the most memorable bars you’ve tried?
My warmest,
Birgitte
p.s. Oh, speaking of first times! Remember when we were exploring visual ideas for the Letters, and I had the idea of making those old-style wax seals, but in chocolate? Well that was my first time doing such a thing. The first few were a complete disaster… the chocolate got stuck on the stamp and I had to wash it off with warm water. Finally found the trick after a bit of research… freeze the stamping tool! The stone-cold metal stamp sears the image into the molten chocolate on contact. So now you know.
Clay’s reply has been posted on The Chocolate Life! He’s back from a 10-day trip to Nigeria, what a trip that was! Also check out the wonderful photos Clay shares in his Letter #2.
And if this is your first time … I mean here on The Cacao Muse, welcome! Feel free to leave your chocolate-stained fingerprints all over the comments.
If I'd like to try some raw cacao, what's the best way to do that (short of hopping on a plane and heading to central America)?