Nestled on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela is the little village of Cuyagua.  The cocoa from Cuyagua has been famous since the time age of the Portuguese pirates who traded these same beans.  I have the immense honor to make chocolate with Cuyagua’s rarified beans.  What I treasure most, however, is the heart of one of Cuyagua’s cocoa farmers who has the heart of a poet.

After I handed this farmer a chocolate bar made with cocoa he helped grow and harvest, he said: “This chocolate is like a river.”  When I asked him why, he said, “This Chocolate takes you on a journey of flavor and it goes to all these wild and wondrous places.  It goes on and on like a river.”  It is my hope that you enjoy Cuyagua’s river of flavor like Cuyagua’s humble cocoa farmer did.