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Steelgrass Chocolate Farm Tour
Hawaii is the only state where the chocolate tree grows, and the only place on Kauai where you can experience a live chocolate tree orchard is at Steelgrass Farm, our family’s eight-acre tropical garden specializing in vanilla, bamboo, and theobroma cacao, the chocolate tree. (Tour Photographs) You’re invited to enjoy Chocolate From Branch to Bar, a guided exploration of everything there is to know about how to grow and harvest chocolate fruit, and turn that fruit into your own home-made chocolate. Bring yourself, your friends and family. Kids 12 and under are free, and with so much to see, smell and taste, the Farm’s wide-open spaces make this a wonderful event for even small children.
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Chocolate From Branch to Bar begins with a stroll through the Steelgrass gardens, winding among groves of rare black bamboo, tropical flowers, and exotic fruit trees. The focus of the three-hour tour is on chocolate, but you will also experience dozens of exotic plants and flowers, and taste the tropical fruits that are in season as your guides share our family’s vision for creating sustainable diversified agriculture on Kauai.
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| Soon we reach the chocolate orchard, where you'll see chocolate trees at all stages of growth. Since they bear fruit year-round, your guide will open a ripe chocolate fruit and pass around the delicious seeds. We then move into our chocolate tasting tent, where you sit comfortably indoors while we demonstrate the many steps involved in processing raw cacao into nibs and then finished chocolate. Cacao is recognized as a powerful health food; as you taste how fermentation and sun-drying transform the seed’s flavor precursors into the rich chocolate we all love, your guide will explain its antioxidant and other health benefits. |
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Best of all, you’ll enjoy an eleven-course dark chocolate tasting, where you sample rare and delicious single-estate dark chocolate bars from all over the world, including Hawaii's own "Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory," mainland American producers such as Guittard, Ghirardelli and Dagoba, the Europeans (Valrhona in France, and Felchlin in Switzerland), and "Republica Del Cacao" from Ecuador. You’ll also learn chocolate’s history, from its first discovery by early Meso-American tribes, to its revered status as a divine plant in the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec cultures, to its introduction to Europe in the 1600’s, and finally how an American inventor, Milton Snavely Hershey, made the nickel Hershey bar (1905) and the Hershey’s kiss (1907) enduring American institutions. |
| Our Chocolate from Branch to Bar tour runs from 9AM to noon, and is offered Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Advance reservations are required: please call (808)821-1857 or email info@steelgrass.org to book your space on the next available tour. Cost for the tour is $60 per person, and children 12 years and under attend free of charge. Steelgrass Farm is located on Kauai's East Side, in the foothills above the town of Kapaa. Once your reservation is confirmed, we will send you a map and written driving directions to the Farm. The Tour is handicapped accessible, and since chocolate trees love moisture, we operate rain or shine. | |
[ Tour Photographs | Chocolate Resources | The Story of Steelgrass Chocolate | Kauai
Chocolate Cooperative ]
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