Oaxacan Mission

January 20, 2006

This past week Joel and I did some extensive chocolate recon in Oaxaca, Oaxaca Mexico. Oaxaca could be called the Mecca of the chocolate beverage. For well over two thousand years the inhabitants of this area have consumed cacao as a beverage by grinding the dried and roasted beans and adding water and spices to make a tasty and fortifying drink. We visited many tiendas de chocolate and tasted some amazing stuff. The streets bustle with taco and tamale vendors, lots of auto and bicycle traffic, and the frequent wafting odors of fresh ground chocolate. Here in Oaxaca the chocolate is still ground with stone molinos that produce an excellent, fine-ground chocolate, and the people here perfer, and expect, their chocolate ground fresh.

We were so thrilled with the idea of getting up to start everyday with a cup of fresh-ground chocolate that we decided to replicate that experience with a grain mill we have been experimenting with here in the States. Though we've gotten close, the steel mill doesn't match the stone molinos for fineness or flavor. But we're still working to perfect the process.


A molinero with his molinos. Oaxaca, Oaxaca. 1/17/06

The cacao that is ground in Oaxaca comes mostly from the Chiapas and Tabasco states. The street price per kilo is around $27 Pesos Mexicanos, but the chocolate stores usually buy from an agent for much less. When you approach the counter you must decide what kind of chocolate you would like. Some prefer Canela and almonds ground in with the beans with 2 parts sugar, while others prefer just pure cacao and sugar. Some prefer just the pure cacao which grinds into a liquid (as shown) but hardens later as it cools into a very solid brick. In the chocolate industry this pure ground chocolate is known as cocoa liquer.



Usually the minimum order for a fresh grinding is 1 kg, so there are often several bins of ground cacao on the counter which can be bought in smaller quantities. I, being who I am, bought several kilos of different blends until I found exactly what I liked. This ended up being 1 kg cacao de chiapas, 1/2 kg raw sugar, 1 8" canela stick, and about a cup of almonds. It hardens like a stone, but if you cool it flattened out in plastic, it can be creased with the back side of a knife after it cools to a putty-like state so as to make several dozen little bars that can be easily broken off later for making cups of chocolate.