From Bean to Bar: My Journey with Cacao

Lydgate Farms – a taste of origin, flavor, and island spirit

Ever wondered where chocolate really begins? It all starts with the colorful, football-shaped cacao fruit—like the one I’m standing next to here on a visit to a local cacao farm on Kaua‘i. Inside each pod are bitter, earthy cacao beans, nestled in a sticky-sweet white pulp. These beans are the origin of every chocolate bar, truffle, and ganache we know and love.

But they don’t start out tasting like chocolate. They’re fermented, dried, roasted, cracked into nibs, and eventually transformed into the rich, smooth decadence we associate with a bite of dark chocolate.

Visiting a cacao farm here on island gives you a whole new appreciation for the people behind the process. You can see the fruit ripen, smell the roasting, and taste the transformation in every local chocolate bar and tea.