Peru Day 1

Peru Day 1:

My flight to Lima left medford at 7am, which meant I had to awake at 5am. Pulling a freddy, I didn't start packing until close to midnight and also wanted to tidy up the home before leaving for a month, which means I didn't crawl into bed until about 2 - 2.30am. I close my eyes and within a moment my alarm goes off. Freddy tired. I was prepared though. I loaded up the coco-motion the night prior, so i only had to float to the kitchen and hit the golden button and it would be ready upon exiting the shower.

I fly to LA for a 4 hour layover. Yipee! I start reading "Into Thin Air". A true story about an expedition to the top of Mt. Everest gone bad; real bad. I now have no urge to climb that mountain and know that whatever situation I'm in, I have no reason to complain. I am grateful to be alive and healthy. I give thanks for every breath i take, my family, my friends and all of you that are around me everyday.

I finally board the flight to lima and off we go. We quickly turn south and start following the coast towards Baja. Below me, mosaics of tiled roofs, the roads the grout that shape the patterns. Spirals of cul-de-sacs perched on hill tops, oozing out in every direction and cascading down to the ocean. SoCal Suburbia. Oceanside, San Diego. The land clothed in red roof tops and homogenized winding roads.

A little further south and it becomes clear that we have crossed the border to Mexico. The landscape shows its natural skin of arid desert. The post modern dream of SoCal suburbian shaped shelter fades to the "truth be told, there aint no water here". Its brown, dry and chapped. I am reminded as we continue to migrate south, that northern Mexico (and the SW of the USA) is a giant desert; for hundreds and hundreds of miles. A scattering of habitations lends the guess that there must be water down there, somewhere. But from 30,000ft it looks stunningly desolate and stingingly beautiful.

I slip into thinking about population increase, fresh water decrease. The Colorado River. Hoover Damn. Lake Powell. Las Vegas, the SoCal Surburbia I just crossed and our selfish shortsighted Wonderland need for this precious, yet so basic, element. Water. We'll die without it. Yet we flush our excrements with it. So telling. We live in the western desert, yet grow kentucky bluegrass in our front lawn billboard of aesthetics. Water. In Venezuela, its more expensive than gasoline.

I arrive into Lima at about 12.30am and get to the hotel an hour later. By the time I get to my room and ready for bed, its about 2.15am. My alarm is set for 6am to depart for Romero Trading's factory 2.5 hours south of lima... in the coastal desert. I'm talking desert! Sand dunes like the sahara. I had no idea this region of Peru's coast was like this.
I meet the rest of the group downstairs and we pile into a small bus. There are 7 of us in all. Myself, John Long (VP of CSR at Hershey), Brendan Kissane (commodity buyer at Hershey), Ray Majors (new bean guy for Scarffenberger), Ferd (bean broker from Mitsubishi), Jose (our host from Romero Trading) and Octavio (bean procurement for Mitsubishi in Peru and bull fighter).

We arrive at the factory around 9am and the tour commences. I've come to appreciate the consistency of cacao processing facilities. Beans come in, get cleaned, roasted, winnowed and ground into liquor. From there it either gets packed as liquor or pressed into butter and powder.

Machinery varies from plant to plant. But the process doesn't change. Kinda like riding a bike. The brand of the bike may be different, but the mechanics of the action are the same.
Romero's factory was impressive. Small, efficient and clean. I liked the operation. The powder room, where they pulverize the cakes and bag the powder, was the cleanest powder room I've seen in Latin American factories. I inquired about the cleanliness and Jose assured me that it is a true reflection of how they operate; not just a quick clean for the visitors.
After the tour we proceed to the office and conduct a tasting. Out come 6 vials of liquor; each made from cacao from different a region of peru. Except one, which was a blend of 2 of the vials.

We taste.

I personally like what Peru has to offer in regards to flavor. Is it the best I've had, no. But I feel it is underrated and within the next 5 years will play a significant role in South American cacao. The genetics that exist in Peru are extremely varied and hold many, many secrets for the patient explorer.

More growers are converting their coca farms to cacao. While they don't make as much money, its a legal crop and the fear of working with drug dealers vanishes. Violence in their communities diminishes and a sense of communal pride and commradory permeates the famers. Since the plantings are new, the farmers can start from scratch with their strains and farming practices. Many growing organically and being certified
Ayacucho, Tingo Maria, Juanji, Qualubamba and Satipo. The cacao that made these samples were of mixed genetics. Yet, a few of them contained predominantly the variety of CCN-51. A variety that most of the "fine flavor" chocolate companies look down upon, as it tends to have a bitter finish that lingers like the burn of a jalapeno seed. Sharp and relentless. (I'll go into this variety later).

The Ayacucho had this very interesting flavor architecture that reminded my of gingerbread, oatmeal cookies, or even a bland chai tea. It had these incredible nuances of aromatic spices that kept unraveling. The finish was very smooth and without protest. And remember we're samplng liquor; no sugar added.

Tingo Maria, to which we are familiar with as its the base of our Milagros chocolate, is very pleasant and one that I will always enjoy. Soft coconut, subtle fruit, round and gentle in flavor composition. It reminds me of female hips on the pallete. Something that offers a sense of comfort.

Juanji was like a blend of Ayacucho and Tingo Maria. Very nice mellow presentation with the gentle spice and gentle fruit. Perhaps too getle though.
The next three, Satipo, Qualubamba and a blend of the two were made from two seperate farms with the vastly dominant strain being the CCN-51. The flavor release on my pallete was flat; except for the finish. The flavor had no distinction, no character, no personality to creed a trait of desire. It sat on my pallete like unsalted and unbuttered boxed mashed potatoes. The ending, though, was like someone swabbed battery acid on the rear of my tongue. Ok, it wasnt that bad. But, it was digging in.

After the tasting, we head back, 2.5 hours, to Lima. We go to the hotel, grab our bags and head to the airport. Off to Tarapoto.

We arrive to Tarapoto around 10pm, get to the hotel around 11.30pm, get to bed around 12.30am and awake at 4.30am, in the early morning darkness, to head to the city of Juanji in the region of Huicungo to visit some farms; 4 to be exact...