The beans for this bar come from Maya Mountain Cacao, Ltd., a social enterprise that buys freshly harvested, unfermented cacao from indigenous Mayan smallholder farmers in southern Belize, then gathers the beans at a centralized fermentary in Punta Gorda. By fermenting and drying all the beans in one place, Maya Mountain Cacao carefully controls quality and flavor consistency in their cocoa, allowing them to fetch a high price. This in turn empowers them to pay farmers extremely well for their beans.

Trevor was the Origin Lead for our Tokyo factory’s Maya Mountain bars in both 2015 and 2016, and he especially enjoys the fruity flavors in Maya Mountain’s cocoa. While the origin is known for berry notes, Trevor conches this batch at higher temperature, for a bolder chocolate flavor.