Making Chocolate History in Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is home to some of the world’s most sought after, fine flavour cocoa – the Trinitario bean. It’s a natural cross between the brilliant, but difficult to grow, Criollo strain and the hardier, but less complex, Forastero. So it’s strange, but true, that the world has never before tasted chocolate made with Saint Lucia’s Trinitario cocoa – previously all St Lucian cocoa has been exported and mixed into blends.
This enterprise has enabled the taste of Saint Lucian chocolate to be tasted for the first time ever.
The rare chocolate on sale currently is from the fourth harvest of beans from Saint Lucia and includes cacao from 80 of our neighbours. The cacao arrives at Rabot Estate ‘wet’, which is to say freshly scooped from pod, so that we can ferment and dry the beans to our exact scientific specification – because that's where the true flavour profile of the bean is developed.
With each batch of chocolate improving on the last, this, our fourth cuvée is the best yet. And with each harvest, our experience and knowledge of how to get the best out of these fine flavour beans grows. This year the beans have been subjected to a lower temperature roast, for a slightly longer time, which has preserved more of the multi-layered flavours and resulted in something milder and more sophisticated in nature.
The recipes, as always, contains no vanilla, allowing the true flavour notes to come through unimpeded.
Saint Lucia is home to some of the world’s most sought after, fine flavour cocoa – the Trinitario bean. It’s a natural cross between the brilliant, but difficult to grow, Criollo strain and the hardier, but less complex, Forastero. So it’s strange, but true, that the world has never before tasted chocolate made with Saint Lucia’s Trinitario cocoa – previously all St Lucian cocoa has been exported and mixed into blends.
This enterprise has enabled the taste of Saint Lucian chocolate to be tasted for the first time ever.
The rare chocolate on sale currently is from the fourth harvest of beans from Saint Lucia and includes cacao from 80 of our neighbours. The cacao arrives at Rabot Estate ‘wet’, which is to say freshly scooped from pod, so that we can ferment and dry the beans to our exact scientific specification – because that's where the true flavour profile of the bean is developed.
With each batch of chocolate improving on the last, this, our fourth cuvée is the best yet. And with each harvest, our experience and knowledge of how to get the best out of these fine flavour beans grows. This year the beans have been subjected to a lower temperature roast, for a slightly longer time, which has preserved more of the multi-layered flavours and resulted in something milder and more sophisticated in nature.
The recipes, as always, contains no vanilla, allowing the true flavour notes to come through unimpeded.
 |
 |
 |
 |
