The Chocolate Factory Tour In Hawaii That's Everything You've Dreamed Of And More
By Megan Shute|Published April 16, 2017
×
Megan Shute
Author
With more than 10 years of experience as a professional writer, Megan holds a degree in Mass Media from her home state of Minnesota. After college, she chose to trade in her winter boots for slippahs and moved to the beautiful island of Oahu, where she has been living for more than five years. She lives on the west side but is constantly taking mini-road trips across the island and visits the neighboring islands whenever she can getaway. She loves hiking, snorkeling, locally-grown coffee, and finding the best acai bowl on Oahu.
There are a few things grown in Hawaii you won’t find harvested anywhere else in the grand United States: coffee, vanilla, and cacao. So, while you’ll find epic chocolate factories across the country, Hawaii is the only state where your chocolate making tour includes a visit to a local farm. Enter Madre Chocolate: an Oahu chocolate company that is involved in every step of the chocolate-making process – from bean to bar.
Madre’s single-origin dark and flavored chocolate bars come in a variety of flavors - including chipotle allspice, hibiscus, passionfruit, and pink peppercorn.
These mouthwatering chocolate bars are sure to satisfy any sweet tooth - but they are more than that: Madre Chocolates have won 23 Hawaii, United States, and international awards.
Tours begin at a local and organic farm, where you will see how the beautiful cacao tree produces its pods, and learn about how to tell when the cacao is ripe, taste fresh cacao pulp, help harvest cacao, and witness the fermentation and drying process.
Then, after an hour long break for lunch, you’ll meet back at Madre’s Kailua location for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the chocolate-making process: from roasting, cracking, and winnowing your own cacao to learning how to grind and temper chocolate into bars.
You’ll even be able to dip local fruit into rich dark chocolate to eat on the spot.
Madre Chocolate/Facebook
Advertisement
Madre Chocolate offers not only farm tours, but also lessons and chocolate tasting sessions, including a make your own chocolate class, and sessions focused on pairing chocolate with wine and whiskey. How cool is that?
Madre Chocolate has two locations on Oahu: 8 North Pauahi Street in Honolulu and 20 Kainehe Street in Kailua. Check out their website for information about their farm to factory tour, the many classes and sessions they offer, and the history of this incredible chocolate.