Cacao Experience
December 29, 2024
I’m Evelyn and together with my husband, we are traveling Ecuador.
This is our second day in Quito, which is the capital of Ecuador. We are staying in the Mama Cuchara Hotel and right next to it there is a fabulous place named “Cacao Experience”, where we had a fantastic morning because we had a beautiful experience with the cacao bean. It was amazing since we love chocolate so much and all the knowledge that they shared us was really surprising. Furthermore, I will be explaining everything that they taught us about the cacao and the historic information of the place we are in.
Nine in the morning we were walking toward the “Cacao Experience”, where we saw a friendly girl that gave us a warm welcoming. When I first step in to the house, I immediately smelled the chocolate and I got excited. We sat down and we felt welcome, they gave us hats to start our experience. The friendly girl, her name was Nicole, she gave us a lot of information about the house and this excite my husband since he is an architect. Nicole mention that the house was actually one of the first houses bult in the colonial era and it was own by one of the lasted Chullas Quteños named Cabascango, he was also known to be a lawyer. When we first enter the house, we noticed that the hallway floor had marble which what Nicole said that the marble represents the richness of the family that owned the house in that era. She also mentions that the thickness of the walls that were surrounding us had a purpose which is to trap the warm temperature inside the house. What caught our attention was the arch that had the entrance of the bathroom because it was representing the height of the people of that era, I estimated that the height was five feet tall. To end the historic information, she mentions a traditional song named “Chulla Quiteño”, where she stands out “Loma Grande” since that’s the name of the sector that we are located in.
SPA TIME
I loved the SPA time; it was the best experience to start the day. Nicole presented her partner Camila, she showed us how she prepared the mixer for our exfoliation meanwhile Nicole explains each step. Camila showed us a grinding stone with two ingredients that was chocolate cream and cacao nibs. They mention that with these two ingredients, they are going to an exfoliation for our hands, Camila probably took three minutes to mix everything every well. When she finished, she put the mixer in our hands and showed us how to massage our hands with the mixer, it probably took about five minutes. When the five minutes pass, they passed us warm towels to take out the extra of our hands. They recommended to inhale the steam of the towel and with the chocolate sense was an amazing combo. When we finished cleaning our hands, I felt the differences of my hands before and after the exfoliation, my hands were really soft and the chocolate sense stayed on my hands which surprised me. To end the SPA experience, Camila added to our hands an essential cacao oil to hydrated our skin, she gave us a massage that was really relaxing. I loved this experience 100%.
TASTING TIME
Pedro introduces himself and started explaining about the cacao experience. What I loved so much is that it was well organized, first he started explaining and giving us information about the cacao bean that are harvest in the Amazon of Ecuador. I never knew that the cacao pot had a fruit that was slimy named mucilage. When we first tasted it, it was sweet. when we ate the mucilage, we found the cacao bean and from there Pedro explained to us the processes that the cacao bean goes through in order to create the pure dark chocolate.
First the cacao bean with its mucilage goes through the fragmentized processes. In these processes the cacao bean is inside a wooden box and it’s cover with plantain leaves so the oxygen doesn’t enter when it’s fragmented. Then when the beans are dried, they start to toasted. Pedro actually had toasted bean cacao and he made us peel it, I loved this interaction since my husband and I never peel one before and it’s surprising that it had a strong smell of chocolate. When we finished peeling Pedro took us to grind the peel cacao bean, we had to take out our force to grind and we saw how the cacao paste came out. After toasting, peeling and grinding the nib we had the cacao paste. With the result Pedro prepare a delicious 100% artisanal chocolate fondue that we ate with marshmallow, I imminently loved it. Then with the same paste that we did Pedro actually did a hot chocolate that had an interesting taste since it had a secret ingredient that I never thought it will be in a hot chocolate, it was salt. To end this beautiful experience with the cacao, Pedro gave us a beer made with cacao nibs and also a shot of cacao liquor, which I loved it so much, I recommend to try this liquor.
This beautiful group was amazing they knew a lot of the cacao bean, the historic information of the place that we were in and what shock me the most was the SPA, I never thought of having a SPA experience with cacao included. They were really kind that they made us feel that we were in home. They also gave us a beautiful gift that was a chocolate bar of 70% of pure dark chocolate that was harvest in the Amazon of Ecuador. I almost forgot to mention that the room that we were having this experience had a lot of stuff that were made from different communities that are located in the Amazon. They were amazing, I recommend if you are in Quito you need to have this beautiful experience of chocolate in “Cacao Experience”.
E.N.