Nahua (pronounced /ˈnɑːwɑː/) is Costa Rica’s leading fine flavor cacao producer with a social mission, supplying leading chocolatiers and cacao buyers around the world. Grown in the fertile soils of Costa Rica, our single origin Trinitario cacao beans are nurtured to their full-bodied flavor potential through a meticulous post-harvest process.
Working directly with top-selected local farmers, we procure our beans fresh and manage the entire post-harvest process at our controlled fermentation facility in the idyllic Costa Rican climate, consistently achieving ideal quality standards.
Nahua is committed to improving the lives of smallholder farmers through training, support and community engagement, and focus on the environment by promoting sustainable farming practices, reforestation and the conservation of natural ecosystems. We seek to make a positive impact, one cacao bean at a time
began with a tour of his chocolate production facility in San Jose and of course some chocolate tasting.
From there we headed to CATIE, the worlds foremost cacao research facility where we learned about and experienced an amazing collection of cacao varieties.
International Cocoa Collection
A world treasure under the protection of CATIE
Since the 1940s, CATIE has kept in perpetuity in its cocoa germplasm collection (IC3) an important representation of the wide genetic diversity that the species has in tropical America. In addition to conservation, the collection's fundamental objective is to provide botanical material for studies of a different nature as well as propagative material for genetic improvement programs and the establishment of commercial plantations in different countries. The CATIE collection is a potential source of clones with notable characteristics, such as resistance to pests and diseases, high content of polyphenols, resistance to extreme conditions, low bearing, etc. Consequently, its conservation is a priority to solve many of the present and future problems that affect this crop.
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For the past six years we have been working with an amazing group of farmers in Santander Colombia. We are honored that they have the trust in us at Tabal Chocolate to be part of their initiative to plant more criollo trees in their community. Criollo is one of the rarest genetic varieties of cacao on the planet and has a delicate taste. This group of farmers has grouped together to plant thousands of trees and to educate additional farmers on the process needed to prune and raise the trees.
March 25, 2021
UPDATE - Criollo Yariguies Cacao Project - COLOMBIA
Planting cacao trees is hard work and take time. On the average it takes 3-5 years to go froom seed to fruiting tree. At the farm they already already have 2,500, between grafted in young cacao criollo plants (from comercial cacao seeds), graft in old cacao trees and nursery (from white beans).
Between grafted in young cacao plants(from comercial cacao seeds): 900
Grafted in old cacao trees: 1.400
In nursery (from white beans): 400
Below are some photos, with the first criollo flower/blossom on the farm that they grafted almost 8 months ago and you can see also Keiran (The volunteer from Virginia) with Miguels' brother Sergio helping prune criollo trees 2 weeks ago.
For the past six years we have been working with an amazing group of farmers in Santander Colombia. We are honored that they have the trust in us at Tabal Chocolate to be part of their initiative to plant more criollo trees in their community. Criollo is one of the rarest genetic varieties of cacao on the planet and has a delicate taste. This group of farmers has grouped together to plant thousands of trees and to educate additional farmers on the process needed to prune and raise the trees.
We want to share this journey with you. our goal is to take a group of chocolate and agricultural fans to Colombia to visit these amazing farms and learn about the journey that cacao takes from tree to chocolate bar.
For the past six years we have been working with an amazing group of farmers in Santander Colombia. We are honored that they have the trust in us at Tabal Chocolate to be part of their initiative to plant more criollo trees in their community. Criollo is one of the rarest genetic varieties of cacao on the planet and has a delicate taste. This group of farmers has grouped together to plant thousands of trees and to educate additional farmers on the process needed to prune and raise the trees.
We want to share this journey with you. our goal is to take a group of chocolate and agricultural fans to Colombia to visit these amazing farms and learn about the journey that cacao takes from tree to chocolate bar.
Miguel reports that they have already planted 2,500 criollo cacao trees and now are planning to graft another 500 in cacao trees that are 10 years old. They are planning to plant another 4,000 criollo cacao as new plantation, which means, they are starting from white seeds.
With his cousin Miguel Marin, they found a really good sector of land that does not have molinias (moniliophthora roreri) (fungus) problems. The cacao planting in this area will be much more successful and easier to plant. The only important thing with this, is that the harvesting of cacao pods from these 4000 trees will start in at the end of 2023, because it takes a cacao tree 3-5 years to product harvestable fruit.
Grafting criollo cacao branches onto well established trees
speeds up the time it takes for a tree to yield cacao fruit.
Below are some photos of the progress of the criollo yariguies cacao project. This week they started the graft work on one of the farms that works with with them to learn the grafting techniques. They will graft 700 criollo trees on that property.