Today I revived the worm bin with some Indian blues. These worms will eat half their weight per day. I set them up with a lot of over ripe bananas and layered it like a lasagna with cardboard, ti leaves, mulch and shredded paper. Our visit to Ma’ona got us really inspired to get back into making vermicast.
Yesterday we met Ken of Primavera Chocolate at the Sunday farmers market in Kona. We tried his 75% criollo chocolate and it blew our minds. We tasted a fruity raspberry butterscotch flavor and honeycomb sweetness with a lemony aftertaste. It was hard to believe it was a dark chocolate. What’s particularly special about this bar is that it’s made with only one variety of cacao which has low bitterness. Most of the Hawaii chocolate I tried or made so far has all kinds of varietals mixed together so it’s kind of a mish mash. But this single varietal Primavera bar is proof that Hawaii grown chocolate has unlimited potential to be some of the best in the world. I hope that we can make chocolate as good as this one. Ken generously shared one of his criollo pods with us. Tonight I opened up the pod and potted up the beans. I’m excited to bring in more fine flavor genetics into the mix!
Originally posted on 2021-09-20, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.