From bean to bar in Kaua’i
Embodying the principle of Mālama ‘Āina, a Hawaiʻian word that means to care for and honour the land for future generation, Lydgate Farms is a cacao farm run by Will Lydgate, whose family legacy on Kaua’i can be traced back across five generations.
“My great-grandfather William arrived in 1865 with a dream to help build the future of the Hawaiian Kingdom,” he said. “[I’ve] dedicated myself to building a team that grows the best cacao the world has ever tasted.”
In addition to producing single-estate chocolate and treats like chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, Lydgate Farms also offers vanilla beans and small-batched palm blossom honey, alongside its highly successful chocolate tours.
The farm has been recognized multiple times for producing some of the best chocolate in the world at international competitions, including its role representing the U.S. at the Cocoa of Excellence Awards held bi-annually in Paris, France.
On a mission to change the way people think about chocolate, tour guide Alexandra Webster said that many visitors who come to the farm don’t know that “cacao is an equatorial fruit — it only grows about 20° of the equator. That actually makes Hawai’i the only place in the continental U.S. that can commercially grow chocolate.”
Cacao is also a superfood that’s chock full of vitamins, trace minerals, and antioxidants.
Over the centuries, cacao and its variations, including drinking chocolate, was used to treat a multitude of ailments, from anemia, mental fatigue and tuberculosis, to fever, gout, kidney stones, and even poor sexual appetite. While most of the chocolate of today no longer has health benefits, top-of-the line fine chocolates do. “It only takes one ounce of quality chocolate a day to reap the benefits of heart health and brain health,” Webster said. “It’s shown to lower all-cause mortality.”
Based solely on the terroir of the farm, chocolate bars can elicit different flavour profiles from fruits to earthy tones. While there are only 14 original families of cacao, they cross-pollinate to create thousands of varietals and result in the various coloured pods that range from yellow to vibrant red.
“Chocolate that is fermented and is not confectionery — meaning it’s heavily diluted with milk and sugar — didn’t even exist until 1997,” Webster said. “People are just starting to learn about the art and the science that goes into making fine chocolate. Because Hawai’i is the only state where it can be commercially grown, we’re trying to transform Kaua’i into the Napa Valley of the chocolate world.”
To make sure people are purchasing quality chocolate, Webster suggests selecting chocolate that advertises a percentage of 70 or higher. “If there isn’t a percentage listed anywhere on the bar, that’s a red flag. That means they don’t want you to know,” she said. “It should be a selling point on the package.”
Ethically speaking, customers can also look for words like “organic”, “bean-to-bar”, “fair trade”, “ethically-sourced”, or “Rainforest Alliance” on the labels. “I encourage you to look up what that means — what hoops companies have to jump through to put that label on their packaging.”
At US$18 a pop, a chocolate bar from Lydgate Farms comes with a heftier price tag than your typical store-bought Cadbury bar. But when you consider the process involved, it should be a lot steeper.
After planting a seed, cacao trees bear mature fruit in approximately five years. Only then will cocoa blossoms start to bloom and then be pollinated by tiny midges. From there, it takes between six and eight months for maturation, with cacao trees living anywhere from 50 to 100 years. When it’s all said and done, the journey from bean to bar takes six to seven years.
“Chocolate has more intricacies, more terroir, and more flavour markers than wine,” Webster concluded.
