Grenada’s Delectable Chocolate Tourism | The star

The steps sound deceptively simple: squirt out some ganache; roll it into a ball between the palms; dip it in a bowl of cocoa powder. Done and dusted. How hard can it be? But it’s the first day of the annual Grenada Chocolate Festivaland our group of amateurs learn how to make truffles on rough training grounds.

“Technically you would make truffles in a nice air conditioned room. That is not what we have here,” says Aaron Sylvester, a Briton who moved to Spice Isle after his Grenadian grandparents left him two acres of land. Here, in 2016, he launched his single-origin artisanal chocolate company, Tri Island chocolate, where our class is in session. And in the open-air pavilion, the scorching 30 degrees gives us about two seconds before our main ingredient melts into sticky finger paint.

Practical lesson number one: Grenada isn’t the easiest place to make chocolate. And until recently, the country wasn’t known for it either, at least not beyond its borders. This spring marks the 10th anniversary of the Grenada Chocolate Festival, and the launch of the event was inspired by the 1999 founded Granada Chocolate Companyconsidered the pioneer of the island.

Today, Grenada is home to six chocolate manufacturers, a disproportionate number for such a small country, smaller than Montreal. And, as I realize during my May trip, it’s become a magnet for regular foodies and industry nerds alike, who come for the still-small, week-long festival smorgasbord of activities — some expected (like dinners of chocolate-soaked in every course), and some borderline academic (say, lecturing on the intricacies of cocoa cross-pollination).

Of course, the cocoa tree is not new here, although its earliest origins remain mysterious, as I am told House of Chocolatethe mini-museum and the one-stop candy store (come stock up on souvenirs), in the capital of St. George’s.

Although 1714 is often cited as the year French colonialists introduced cocoa farming here, the trees – which grow almost exclusively in a sparse zone just north and south of the equator — already existed on the island. (Lingo note: cacao provides the beans to make cacao, although confusingly “cocoa” and “cocoa” are also often used interchangeably.)

By the 1760s, Grenada was the largest producer and exporter of cocoa in the world. So why isn’t there a long history of domestically made chocolate?

It’s a question the late Mott Green, the unusual American co-founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company, also wondered. “He found out that the farmers received very little money for the cocoa (pods), and that it is a lot of work,” explains Magdalena Fielden, the hotelier behind the colorful family business True Blue Bay Boutique Resortand also the founder of the Grenada Chocolate Festival.

“All the money was made outside Grenada (by foreign chocolatiers who bought the cocoa), and the poor farmers here really struggled,” explains Fielden. So Green founded the island’s first tree-to-bar company—not just bean-to-bar—producing dark chocolate in a solar-powered rainforest factory next to cocoa groves. If you could make everything within Grenada, it was thought, much more profit would remain in the hands of local workers.

When Green died in a tragic electrical accident ten years ago, Fielden was moved to keep his memory alive. “I thought, okay, I’m going to do a festival, (just one) where people see what goes on behind the chocolate bar,” she explains. It would not only be about tasting the wares, but meeting the farmers and learning about the process.

Travelers visiting outside of the festival can still sign up for agrotourism experiences year-round at places such as Belmont estate, in the northern parish of St. Patrick. Founded in the 1600s as a colonial-era plantation growing mostly coffee and sugar cane, it is now a small tree-to-bar chocolate maker, having opened its factory in 2017.

The company’s process retains an old-school feel: During our tour, we see the barn boxes where the fresh, organic cocoa beans are fermented (or “sweated”) for up to nine days under banana leaves and burlap sacks. Then the kidney beans are spread out on worn wooden trays to bake in the sun.

“To dry the beans properly, you have to turn them. You could use a rake, but in Grenada we use feet,” explains our guide, Sheldon, as a young woman saunters across one of the long trays. “It’s a traditional practice called ‘walking the cacao.'”

In addition to the distinctive production methods, the chocolate here simply tastes different. They’re not sugary Halloween treats, Sylvester of Tri Island tells me, or the “terrible” dark chocolate you’d get in North America. I’m impressed with everything I try at the festival, from Sylvester’s voluptuous rum truffles to the nib-studded record of Jouvay chocolatea tree-to-bar maker whose majority shareholders are Grenadian cocoa growers.

“In Grenada, where you plant your cocoa trees affects how the cocoa tastes,” explains Sylvester. For example, coconuts, mangoes and bananas grow among the cocoa on his piece of land, everything thrives on the rich volcanic soil of the island. “As the roots of that cocoa tree go down, they will pass through and cross the different fruit trees, and a small portion of their flavors will be transferred. And that is why the cocoa tastes different.”

Much of Grenada’s fine chocolate remains an exclusive product – it is still largely found on the island. The tropical climate that made our truffle class challenging also makes it difficult to transport the candies far, Sylvester tells me. Consider this another reason, should you need one, to come and enjoy yourself.

Wing Sze Tang traveled as a guest of the Grenada Tourism Authoritywho has not reviewed or approved this article.

Grenada travel 2023: when you go

How to get there: Multiple airlines fly from Toronto to St. George’s with at least one stopover. Direct Air Canada service (approximately five hours and 30 minutes) runs seasonally and will resume in the fall.

Where to stay: A boutique hotel with 37 suites and villas on a hillside, Store cinnamon in St. George’s offers a relaxed, homely take on luxury. It is one of the capital’s most streamlined resorts Silversand Grenada, with 43 rooms and suites, eight villas and a 330-foot infinity pool designed for photo ops. Two more chic hotels will open this year: Six Senses La Sagesse and Silver Sands Beach House.

What else to do: Besides chocolate, Grenada’s other gourmand draw is rum. Dating from 1785, the Estate River Antoine is the oldest on the island rum distilleryand you can take a short but dazzling tour of the retro process, which includes the bubbling of sugar cane as it ferments in huge open-air concrete vats.

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