Hawaii Waialua Chocolate

Waialua cacao is harvested throughout the year with major harvesting March through June. Each tree produces about 15-40 pods that each produce 30-40 beans. The pods are about the size of a football. Next step is fermenting. The goal here is to stop the beans' maturation process while preserving the natural acidity and flavor. The drying stage us next. Beans are left out to dry in the Hawaiian sun for 3-4 weeks. Now the beans are ready for roasting, the first step for making refined chocolate. The winnowing process is next. That is where splitting off of the outer shell takes place leaving the nibs, the dark brown beans. Grinders are used to turn the roasted beans into liquid unsweetened chocolate. Vanilla beans, Caine sugar and cocoa butter are added. Cinching continues until a velvety smooth texture is produced. Now the chocolate is ready to be made into bars. The temperature is raised and lowered with the results being a shiny chocolate that will snap upon breaking. The chocolate is then poured into molds where it is quickly cooled. Last the bars are wrapped in the richly colored Waialua Chocolate wrappers. You can buy extra dark-70% Cocoa, semisweet-55%cocoa, and milk chocolate -37% cocoa. After tasting each Kathy would pick the dark. It was very smooth and not at all bitter. Each bar is about $4
These are the fermenting tanks. Notice this is a Dole product.

More pictures will follow when we get back to Texas.