Chocolate Week in Belize: May 16th – 23rd 2010

Chocolate Week for May 2010 is sold out! Read more about Chocolate Week below or sign up for our newsletter to find out about the next Chocolate Week.

Cotton Tree Lodge & Taza Chocolate are proud to present Chocolate Week. This May, we invite you to join Taza cofounder Alex Whitmore for a full week in beautiful Belize, exploring the Mayan origins of chocolate and relaxing in the thatched-roof cabanas of Cotton Tree Lodge. Alex has spent the last five years travelling extensively through Latin America and the Caribbean in an effort to source the highest quality, organic cacao for Taza Chocolate. These efforts have recently led us to Belize where, in partnership with Cotton Tree Lodge and the Toledo Cacao Growers Association (TCGA), we are laying the groundwork for our next single origin chocolate bar. For enthusiasts seeking to better understand the chocolate-making process from bean to bar, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. 

Chocolate, from Tree to Taste:

The week’s activities, led by Alex Whitmore, will be centered on the history and cultivation of cacao, and its transformation into craft chocolate. The climate of Southern Belize has proven just right for farming Theobroma cacao, on account its tropical lowland climate. And Cotton Tree Lodge is the ideal base from which to explore chocolate in all its facets.

Your week will begin with a visit to one of several cacao farms, where you’ll learn to identify healthy, ripe cacao pods and how to properly harvest the flesh and seeds inside. During this visit, Alex will share his philosophy and methods for sourcing great cacao, of the sort we use to make Taza Chocolate. Back at Cotton Tree, Alex will guide you through the fermentation process – the most significant factor in flavor development on the farm – using the beans you collected.

Later in the week, local chocolate artisans will demonstrate the roasting and winnowing steps, where the bean is heated to impart flavor and eliminate moisture, and the shell is removed. With your freshly winnowed cacao, you’ll make your own rustic chocolate by mano y metate – that is, by hand with traditional stone tools. Alex will describe aspects of chocolate production at Taza, as well as the final stages of the process, tempering and molding.

The end of chocolate week has been timed to coincide with the Toledo Cacao Festival, put on each year at this time by the TCGA, a grower-owned Fair Trade cooperative. The festival will provide the opportunity to meet with farmers, sample a large variety of chocolates from the region, and learn more about the traditions of Mayan chocolate-making. By the time you depart Belize, you may rightly call yourself a chocolate expert.

Rustic Setting, Luxury Accommodations:

Nestled amidst dense rainforest on the banks of the Moho River, Cotton Tree Lodge sits placidly on a 100-acre plot in the Toledo district of Belize. The region is rich with Mayan history – stone ruins and ancient pottery shards persist alongside the descendants of ancient civilizations. Cacao has been cultivated here for millennia, at one time for use in ritual beverages, now made into small batch chocolate bars.

When not immersed in the cacao-centric activities of Chocolate Week, you’re encouraged to kick back and relax in the lodge, or head out with a Cotton Tree guide on a one-of-a-kind adventure. Horseback riding, bird watching hikes, and darkened swims in Blue Creek Cave are just some of the excursions available at this jungle oasis. Or head back to your private cabana, a fully screened, thatched roof affair, with a private bathroom, ceiling fan, balcony, and hammocks. 

While providing guests with comfortable accommodations and modern amenities, Cotton Tree Lodge is nevertheless committed to minimizing its impact on the unspoiled Belizean rainforest. Energy for the lodge is generated primarily via inconspicuous solar panels. Much of the food served is grown in Cotton Tree’s own organic garden, tended by extensionists of the non-profit Sustainable Harvest International.

Chocolate week may 2010 is sold out! for more information:

Email cottontree@tazachocolate.com or call (617) 623-0804