Chocolate is one of the most-loved products in the world.
Most of the world’s cacao, the source of chocolate, is exported from producer countries in “bulk” form and receives a relatively low-price set by global commodity markets. However, in recent years, consumers have become more interested in trying “specialty” versions of cacao products. Since the mid-1980s, exporters and processors have also been increasingly marketing enticing “single-origin” chocolate products made from cacao they purchase from specific countries or regions, or even from a single farm or farmer group, in some cases moving manufacturing closer to growing sites or using distinctive techniques to develop flavors. These products tend to have idiosyncratic flavor profiles that reflect local conditions and represent the unique lands, people, and cultures that produce them, in turn providing farmers with higher prices that help improve their lives. Nonetheless, even as many consumers begin to develop more sophisticated palettes for these products, most lack tangible associations with the lands and people that produce them.
Fostering consumer appreciation of the fascinating and unique properties of single-origin products to improve their value is at the center of our mission at GeoBeat, the company where I’ve been Communications Director since 2020. In support of this mission, I’ve met and photographed cacao farmers, traders, and processors in dozens of countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, and Oceania to help create bonds between these people and consumers.
ter·roir /terˈwär/ (French)
The natural environment in which a particular food item is produced, including factors such as soil, terrain and climate, as well as unique growing and processing techniques and practices. The characteristic flavor and texture imparted to a product by the interaction of the physical and human environment in which it is produced.
A farmer near Dame Marie shows breaks open a cocoa pod to reveal the seeds and pulp inside. The pulp has a completely unique sweet and sour fruit flavor that some farmers say is the best part of the tree.
While the applicability of the term “terroir” to cacao in strictly scientific terms is a subject of debate, I think it’s a useful concept for describing the subtle and evocative character imparted to single-origin products by the lands and people where they are grown and processed. In this sense, in addition to soil and climate, this more expansive definition of the word “terroir” also encompasses the activities that local people undertake to produce cacao products, such as harvesting, drying, and fermentation. Factors that influence the way farmers relate to their trees—including how extensively and densely they plant them, what they inter-crop them with, and when they harvest them, as well as the conditions in which beans are dried, stored, fermented and sold—all interact to determine quality and flavor. More subtle elements related to this interaction could even include seasonal income cycles and the role of a crop in farmers’ livelihoods, the resources farmers and processors have available to invest in their farms and handling facilities, and the way a crop is consumed locally in the communities where producers live.
Cocoa beans laid out to dry in a mountain village in Grand Anse.
Ultimately however, the way people experience a specific cacao product may be most shaped by the unique and personal associations of its consumers. To a person lucky enough to be able to associate a unique chocolate with the often-remote places and people behind it, this experience can be a remarkable sensory journey. For example, the tangy bite of a bar from Madagascar may conjure up that country’s fetid, vanilla-scented coastal rainforests as well as memories of the industrious, panga (machete)-toting farmers that grew it; or a fruit-toned Fijian bar may recall the breezy, palm-lined, tropical South Seas and also the often-joyful communal ethos of the women that bagged the beans used to manufacture it. That is the evocative power of terroir. In this article, I share an example of my experience of a specific place and product in order to illustrate why I define the concept of terroir in this way. While most consumers will not be so fortunate as to have this direct experience with cacao producers; hopefully, by sharing my photography and stories, I am harnessing the evocative power of this expanded concept of terroir to strengthen associations between consumers and the people that grow and process cacao, to the benefit of both.