Finca Frida Estate, Soconusco, Mexico 70%
Finca Frida will release here at 3:30pm NZ time, Wednesday 12 March
Alongside the coastal mango trees of Finca Frida Estate, Soconusco, Mexico, grows an incredibly rare white heirloom criollo cacao affectionately known as ‘Carmella’. We are humbled to have been given the opportunity to craft this single estate, single variety almendra blanca cacao into a uniquely pale and delicate chocolate
With incredible care we’ve transformed these near-mythical cacao beans into a fascinating 70% dark chocolate; light in colour, creamy in texture and delightful in character.
While Finca Frida, Soconusco’s unique almendra blanca cacao flows elegantly with suggestions of pale milk chocolate, soft caramel and hints of tangy lychee that rounds out with subtle notes of nut butter, it’s simply its pure, heirloom character talking - plus organic cane sugar and our obsession for preserving the flavours of provenance.
This is an exceptionally rare and truly remarkable experience for the senses. We hope you will savour every moment of this experience as much as we have here at Foundry Chocolate..
70g
Ingredients: Cacao Beans & Organic Cane Sugar. No added cacao butter, lecithin or vanilla.
Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Soy Free, Vegan and 100% Plant Based.
Origin Information:
This cacao origin comes from the Finca Frida estate in Soconusco. The Finca Frida project comprises several hundred hectares of crops, mainly mango, timber trees and almost 15 hectares of cacao.
While family-owned smallholder farms with a given complex genetic mix are the norm in Mexico (farms that have been passed down from generation to generation without any planning in terms of cacao variety selection), this origin is a single-estate cacao that is also “single-variety”.
The cacao variety present here is the “Carmelo”, a white heirloom Mexican criollo cacao (“almendra blanca” in Spanish) that has been “rescued and promoted” by the cacao and agronomy research center of Soconusco.
Contrary to what you usually see in Mexico, the variety has not only been carefully selected and planted, but the trees are also pruned and an irrigation system provides moisture to the plantation throughout the day.
Compared to elsewhere in Mexico, and for cacao farms the world over, cross-pollination of the cacao from different genetics at neighbouring cacao farms does not occur, thanks to the fact that the almendra blanca grown at Finca Frida is located next to the sea and far away from other cacao farms.
Harvesting, fermentation and drying:
The pods are harvested and cracked to extract the fresh cacao beans (aka wet beans), which are collected in buckets and taken to the fermentation center.
Small fermentation boxes are used, built with the same tropical woods that are grown in the estate. Usually, fermentation boxes have a capacity of 400 – 900 kg of wet beans, but here working with small batches is the way to go. Each box contains between 100 to 200kg of wet beans.
These small batches are also dried separately under the sun with small drying beds. The drying process lasts usually in 6 or 7 days and then the cacao is sorted by hand.
