Chocolate in the Panamanian Jungle

Like most, I have a deep rooted love for chocolate and its uncanny ability to create smiles, alleviate pain, remedy bad days and bring comfort. I have always enjoyed the convenience with which I can pick up chocolate from my local Duane Reade but have never stopped to imagine the process by which chocolate is made..until now.

On a recent trip to Panama, I had the absolute pleasure of visiting the local Ngäbe tribe in the heart of the Panamanian jungle in the Bocas del Toro region. After having spent the past two days absorbing sunlight, sand and waves on the idyllic Isla Colon, my friends and I decided to swap beach for jungle and visit a local chocolate farm. After a half hour boat ride, 15 minute bus ride and sweat-inducing jungle hike later, we found ourselves with walking sticks in hand in the middle of the Panamanian jungle, learning about cocoa plants from our Ngäbe guide. Chocolate in its original form comes from cocoa beans that are nestled in large yellow or purple cocoa pods. Surprisingly, when you cut open a cocoa pod the seeds look nothing and taste nothing like chocolate. Instead, the seeds are covered in a white pulp (called baba de cacao in South America) that you can suck on for a delicious lychee-like flavor.

Continuing on our jungle adventure, our guide pointed out sleepy sloths, vocal toucans and vibrant frogs that hung around the roots of the impossibly large trees, ultimately leading us up hill where two local Ngäbe women were roasting and grinding cocoa beans for our tasting. Both clad in traditional, colorful clothing -one woman hovered above a wood fire slowly roasting fresh cocoa beans in preparation for grinding. Once ready, the beans were then handed to another local woman who began grinding the beans on a rock, using another rounded rock to crush the beans into a chocolate paste mixed only with some sugar and milk. Once ready, we each were handed some of the freshly roasted and ground chocolate paste on a piece of coconut shell for our tasting.

Now, I have had some incredible meals and delectable bites of food in the past but that first bite of chocolate was nothing short of a religious experience. Perhaps it was the context of the situation, of being surrounded by nothing but scenic jungle and having just followed this chocolate from bean to mouth, but that first bite practically brought tears to my eyes. Not too sweet, not too bitter, a bit of a crunch from the sugar granules, smooth from the added milk and incredibly rich in flavor from the cocoa plant-if chocolate emulates the sensation of falling in love, then this chocolate had me ready to propose.

After the chocolate left me having a metaphysical crisis, our group continued to the Ngäbe village for a traditional lunch of chicken, vegetables and boiled roots from plants found around the jungle-all in all delicious. I happily devoured lunch and then went on to purchase as much chocolate from the village as was possible to bring back-each package of chocolate now sitting in my New York apartment like gold bars.

The process by which the Ngäbe make their chocolate is simple and endearing, once again proving how it’s the littlest things in life that can really mean the most. Although their village is made up of run down, wooden homes with chickens roaming freely around and clothes strung from every corner, these people carried smiles on their face-particularly the children. I am always left to feel a mixture of appreciation, remorse, conflict and compassion when I come across children from poorer villages such as the Ngobe village. One of the kids, a rather shy but thoughtful looking girl likely younger than 8 years old, was all smiles after I handed her a bracelet I had in my bag for her to keep. She showed us around her home, pointing out fluffy rabbits, chickens and the neighborhood boys inexplicably cracking up among themselves. My last look back at the Ngäbe village and all I could think was how much I wished these people well, how much the simple experience of walking in their shoes and experiencing their world had given me a priceless sense of reality, perspective and appreciation, not to mention phenomenal chocolate.