Jan. 9: Bob Cooper of the Original Hawaiian Chocolate factory at Kailua-Kona, Hawaii took us into his stand of cacao trees, showing us where the pods form on the trees. He talked about the care of the trees. It takes 150 days for the trees to make the pods which are hand harvested. The beans are taken from the pods and go through a series of steps before getting to the point where the chocolate is turned into bars for consumption. He has about 1350 trees on 1 acre of land. SDARL alumni taste tested the chocolate and gave it a thumbs up!
