Commentary
Page 10
Street Roots • Dec 15-21, 2017
The chocolate choice
A small Costa Rican chocolate producer pursues a vision
of shared wealth in an industry rife with abuse
P H O T O S BY R IA H K N A P P
BY RIAH KNAPP
Paul and his wife Jeanne began Caribeans
with the vision of creating the first local
coffee shop in Puerto Viejo. About 12 years
hick humid air stuck to my body as the
ago, their friends Jeff and Sherry Ghiotto
dense jungle canopy buzzed with
were looking for someone to take care of
sounds of rainforest creatures; the
their 13-acre property. Paul and Jeanne took
smell of exotic plants and mosquito repellent
the job. The jungle property held roughly
clung to the inside of my nose. A golden silk
2,000 cacao trees that had been abandoned
orb-weaver spider sat in his web in front of
due to the spread of a devastating fungal
the object of our focus, a cluster of cacao
blight.
pods hanging from the trunk of a tree. We
During their first years on the farm, Paul
were there to learn the secrets of a small
and Jeanne occasionally harvested the small
Costa Rican chocolate producer, Caribeans.
amount of surviving cacao, and experimented
Nestled in the coastal jungle of Puerto Viejo
with roasting it in their coffee roaster. Jeff
de Talamanca, this Caribbean cacao farm
commented that their first “bean to bar”
embodies a chocolate industry centered
experiment yielded a revolting chocolate bar,
around justice and environmentally conscious
but in time they learned how to perfect the
production.
process.
According to a study done by Tulane
They decided to revive the cacao forest by
University, on child labor in West African
bringing in local indigenous experts; using
cacao growing areas, 2.26 million children
natural farming methods they were able to
between the ages of 5 and 17 were working in
begin the restoration process and today many
the chocolate industry in Ghana and Cote
of the trees yield healthy cacao. Paul and
d’Ivoire in 2013-14. These staggering
Jeanne continue to work alongside Jeff and
statistics unleash a turmoil of questions
Sherry to nurture the Caribeans coffee shop
around corruption in the chocolate industry
and cacao.
on the Ivory Coast and around the world. The
We emerged at the top of the cacao forest
cacao haven of Caribeans is sadly not the
revealing a panoramic view of the Caribbean
norm when it comes to large scale cacao
ocean, where two indigenous workers sat on
production and chocolate making.
stools under a wooden shelter splitting open
As we ventured deeper into the jungle,
cacao pods with machetes. We gathered
cacao pods of different colors - purple,
around a large pile of cacao carcasses while
yellow, red - hung under a towering forest
Paul walked us through the “bean to bar”
roof; Chocolate Master and Caribeans owner
process. Every week, workers collect ripe
Paul Johnson explained that the cacao forest
cacao pods and bring them up to the shelter,
is more of a rainforest ecosystem than a
where they are split open; the fruit is
traditional farm, it’s for this reason Caribeans
separated into a bin and the pods discarded.
doesn’t use any pesticides, fungicides or
The bean-containing fruit is transferred into a
chemical fertilizers to alter tree growth.
bag, box, or pile to undergo fermentation
Creating quality ingredients “in harmony”
before drying in the heat of the sun. After the
with the natural environment is one value
beans are dried they are roasted, split and
that sets Caribeans apart from other cacao
winnowed, and refined with sugar. The beans
producers. The use of pesticides would
are then tempered and poured into molds,
protect the cacao from hungry animals, but it
and cooled to form solid bars. Later in an
would inflict harm on the delicate forest
email interview Paul said “the bean to bar
ecosystems, devastating unique creatures like
process has changed little over the last
the red poison dart frog.
century.”
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T
T
Riah Knapp is a
Poet, artist,
musician and
lifelong learner
living in Portland.
Paul stated that Caribeans provides two to
five local workers with wages much higher
than that of other Costa Rican farmers.
Caribeans grows organic cacao and sources
the rest from 15 local families, offering to pay
twice the market value. This supports
neighboring farms and keeps money in the
local economy, empowering farmers to
produce higher quality cacao and participate
in tasting the end products, which consist
purely of organic cacao and organic cane
sugar.
Paul took a sliced pod from a worker,
grasping its innards in his hand he pulled out
a series of white bean-containing fruits
smaller than the size of a quarter. Handing
each of us a piece we tentatively bit into the
pulp, the fruit was sweet while the bean was
bitter. He asked us if we knew the major
difference between the two workers present,
and workers on most cacao farms.
“Their age” he said. He explained that
many cacao farms hire children 5 to 11 years
old for cheap labor; on the Ivory Coast,
children often leave home to work on cacao
farms in order to send money to their
families, with little knowledge of how to
return.
My heart dropped at the gravity of the
situation. Paul told us that at Caribeans they
only hire workers of appropriate ages, but
this is not the norm when it comes to large
scale cacao farming in many parts of the
world.
“I think there will always be customers for
products that are produced cheaply and
ignore the injustices that are behind the
products they buy. But those who are more
awake to the conditions of cacao producing
countries will begin to look for more
information about the products they
consume, Paul said. His personal mission is
to successfully model a new approach to the
production chain,” in order to create a wealth
of inheritance for the next generation, and to
See CHOCOLATE, page 11
Above left, the
beans in sid e a
cacao pod. Above,
workers a t
Caribeans process
the cacao.