"Cacao is a food that everyone can eat around the world and it has many properties that are good for the body. We grow cacao ourselves and are encouraging local farmers to grow more. We buy from the villagers and have become the one stop shop for fermentation and drying. This allows us to control the quality and taste of the cacao for shipping to the States. We are expecting to export the beans to the world because we love what we do, it is not about the profit.
~SURIYA CHAISUTTI
Thai farmers planted cacao seedlings back in 2010 as a government initiative, but there was no market for it. Since they weren’t harming any of the profitable fruit trees, the crops were left to grow wild. In 2015, we met the farmers and introduced fermentation and drying to them. It took three years of trial and error, but we finally found a ferment that we were all happy with. After that, the beans we shipped to the U.S., and we were able to produce our first Thai chocolate bar. This journey with Suriya and Boom, the producers, is the true meaning of direct trade. Currently, we talk to them everyday to keep each other informed.
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