I always wanted to stay at the Manago hotel in Kealakekua. The inn has been around forever and what’s even more amazing is that the restaurant on the first floor is the oldest continuously running restaurant in the state of Hawaii. This morning I had coffee and a classic local style breakfast there and headed over to Ken’s to teach a chocolate making workshop for the Hawaii Master Food Preservers graduates.
I basically brought the whole factory to Kona. We discussed the importance of fermentation and drying first. Then we roasted 4 pounds of cacao beans with the Behmor roaster. We removed the shells using the Frongello cacao winnowing device and we started to grind a batch of 70% dark chocolate in the Premiere chocolate refiner. Since there was no AC we couldn’t run the Revolation V tempering machine but I think the class understood the whole concept. It’s definitely a lot of information in only 2 hours but the attendees were stoked and we ate a lot of chocolate.
I received great reviews on both the milk and dark chocolate and sold some of our first chocolate bars. It’s always fun to see all the mature fruit trees at HTFG. I got to try an ooray and a madruno for the first time. Both of these we planted recently and still have a long way to go. It was dark by the time I returned home. After eating dinner I went outside with the headlamp and planted another cacao tree.
Originally posted on 2021-10-29, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.