We had the opportunity to tour Sibo Chocolate today and it definitely resulted in the sweetest day yet! When we were handed the first cup of hot chocolate, I knew I was in for the best experience. One of the founders, Julio, led us in a chocolate tasting and elaborated on the history of chocolate making. Surprisingly, even though chocolate originated in Central America, Costa Rica did not start producing chocolate until about 18 years ago, which is when Sibo opened its doors. Indigenous communities used to turn cacao beans into a chocolate drink with chili to use as a medicine. Also, cacao was so valuable that it was used as currency in indigenous communities. When the Europeans came to Central America, they tried this chocolate drink and brought chocolate back to Europe. However, it took awhile for the chocolate to become what we know today. A major problem with chocolate production in the past was that not all the beans were grinded up fully, leading to a grainy, unpleasant taste. In the mid 20th century, Richard Lindt left a cocoa bean grinder on for 72 hours and discovered that this solved the issue. In addition, the Swiss invented a machine that would produce chocolate at a faster rate than a human worker. On top of these important events, in 1905, Richard Cadbury figured out how to advertise chocolate to children, which opened a whole new market. He produced chocolate eggs and placed little plastic toys inside.
At Sibo, they grow and make their own chocolate products. I really appreciated how Julio gave immense credit to all the workers at his company, especially when he highlighted the importance of immigrant workers. Costa Rica is a melting pot of people and cultures, so when Julio was tasked in creating a chocolate to represent Costa Rica, he utilized flavors from many influences. The chocolate was a milk chocolate with ginger, coconut milk, and caramel. Another chocolate we tasted was the drink the indigenous people made with chocolate and chili. Another value of Sibo Chocolate is sustainability. According to Julio, this is not just referencing the environment. We also have a social, economic, and cultural responsibility as a part of sustainability. Julio made the entire experience a choc full of fun because he had lots of energy and cracked many jokes! One of my favorite parts of the tasting was when he went into depth about how vile white chocolate is. He even went as far as to say it was invented by Satan.
In Costa Rica currently, the desire to be a cacao bean farmer has decreased substantially due to the price of cacao beans lowering to $11 per kilogram from $16 in just a month. Therefore, cacao is not a financially stable crop and is an unappealing business endeavor. I find this to be disappointing because cacao has a positive impact on the environment because it grows under the shade of trees. Along the supply chain, farmers get the short end of the stick when profit is distributed. Transportation and brokers receive most of the profits instead of the farmers, thus differing from the coffee profit distribution. Coffee farmers receive most of the profits along the supply chain. As a whole, Costa Rican cacao farmers and chocolate makers have to compete in quality rather than quantity, which is similar to the coffee industry. Not a choco-lot of chocolate can be grown in Costa Rica. Since Costa Rica is such a small country, they do not have the means to compete with all the larger countries in Africa, so they focus more on the quality of the chocolate.
For lunch, we visited Riverside Pizzeria and Gastropub. They are a farm-to-table concept restaurant that values and uses sustainable practices. This means that most of the ingredients served are grown in the outdoor garden area. One example of a sustainable practice they partake in is using old coffee trees to cook the pizza. They purchase coffee trees that farms have discarded after around 20 years of producing coffee cherries. Similar to Life Monteverde, Riverside makes their own organic fertilizer and composts everything they possibly can. I also find it interesting that 80% of their electricity is produced by solar panels on the roof and that they have no new footprint. When the owner purchased the property, he kept many of the original parts from when it burned down. Sibo, Britt, and Riverside all concentrate on making each step as sustainable as possible, while still keeping the business flowing. Finally, each has their own unique practices associated with their industry. The trip is more than halfway through and it is very bittersweet. I’ll see you choco-later!
