A trip to Indonesia was one of the most memorable experiences for me. In August, 2018, I joined a cacao study tour to Indonesia conducted by a chocolate company from Kyoto. I attended a seminar about fair trade a year before, and the company owner was an invited speaker who impressed the participants with his passion and enthusiasm. The chocolate company is quite young and just about eight years old; however, their innovative ideas go beyond fair trade and attract not only chocolate lovers, but also people who work for world cooperation and social business. I was one of them, and couldn’t wait to join the tour.

The most exciting event during the tour was visiting local cacao farms and farmers. It took almost two days to get to the village of Polewali in Polewali Mandar on Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. However, it was worth visiting there. We experienced to plant a cacao sapling and harvest cacao fruit on a farm. Also, we observed the process to make cacao beans ready as the ingredient for chocolate. Furthermore, we had a chance to ask many questions to the cacao farmers. We learned that they practice agroforestry so that they could harvest a variety of farm products to get a stable income without the influence of bad weather or trouble, and that a key to make quality cacao beans is fermentation, which requires a lot of training and special skills. I was quite impressed by the fact that the chocolate company and the local cacao farmers are really working hard together for high quality cacao beans. The company rewards the farmers with a higher price for their efforts. The farmers seemed to feel rewarded by meeting their customers from Japan too.

Another unforgettable event was that we made our own chocolate from cacao beans by hand with local elementary students at their school. The experience helped us to understand the ‘bean to bar’ process and to value the importance of the quality of cacao beans for good chocolate. The local kids whose parents are cacao farmers had never eaten chocolate. They don’t have a custom to eat chocolate because it melts at over 30º C, which is the typical temperature there. After making and eating chocolate for the first time, all kids looked very happy and so proud of their parents. Their smiles made us happy and our memory sweeter.

The whole program gave me an opportunity to learn that delicious chocolate is made from high quality cacao beans, which is supported by the producers’ effort and patience. Their chocolate is a little expensive, but they deserve it. Whenever I bought so called fair trade chocolate, I used to have a feeling of charity. However, I don’t feel like that for them, and I just appreciate all the hard work they do. When I eat their chocolate, I think of the cacao farmers and the children’s smiles in Indonesia, and I hope they think of their chocolate lovers in Japan.

Photo Credit: the author