Costa Rican Chocolate

What makes Costa Rican chocolate so good?

Making chocolate is a labor of love. From farm to table, there are nine steps in getting a delicious chocolate bar to you—andeach one is critical. A delicious chocolate depends on great cacao beans, but also how those beans are processed and how the chocolate is made.

The first step can be the hardest growing the cacao.

Most of Costa Rica’s cacao is of the Trinitario variety, which represents only about 12% of the cacao produced in the world. This type of cacao typically delivers more complex and less bitter flavors, and some of it can be classified as “fine flavor.” Whether it makes the grade as fine flavor depends heavily on the next three steps.

The cacao pods, which mature at different rates, have to be harvested by hand at just the right time. And the beans have to be scooped out and placed in fermentation boxes with care. For the fermentation process to yield the best results, the right temperatures and time for aerobic and anaerobic phases are required. Drying the beans is also an essential step—too slow could lead to moldy beans, too fast could seal in some moisture.

Assuming all this has been done right, the roasting process critical. Reaching just the right temperature for just the right time will enhance all those great flavors in the bean without masking them behind a high roast. Winnowing follows, which requires removing as much of the shell as possible without losing pieces of the bean (cocoa nibs). This is an imperfect process.

Grinding and conching the beans in specialized equipment are next, which is a big moment for defining the overall quality of the chocolate. The goal is to refine the cacao pieces and sugar until the paste feels smooth and silky on the tongue, all while reducing bitterness and astringency. But that can be hard to accomplish without also losing some of the pleasant acidity. Too much conching and the chocolate will fall flat.

Finally, the tempering process is crucial to giving the chocolate all the characteristics that we love: the shine, the snap and the perfect melt in your mouth.

Every bar of Sibö Chocolate uses only the best Trinitario cacao from Costa Rica and is made with the highest standards of quality in order to deliver excellent chocolate every time. While we celebrate the unique flavors developed in each micro batch we make, we take care in monitoring all steps in the chocolate making process, in order to guarantee outstanding flavor that gets better every year.

Long before coffee, Costa Ricans drank chocolate

In fact, chocolate was prepared as a sacred ceremonial drink throughout Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) as far back as 3,000 years ago. How do we know? Archaeologists have found evidence of theobromine—a chemical that occurs only in cacao—in the shattered pieces of ornate pottery dating from 1100 BC. In some cases, these vessels had a lock-top, presumably to prevent this highly coveted “food of the gods” from spilling while being carried. The first record of the cultivation of cacao in Costa Rica was documented in 1563 in the central Pacific town of Quepos. But larger scale production came as early as 1610 in the Caribbean port of Matina. Cacao was mainly an export product destined for Portobello, Panama and Cartagena, Colombia.

fisrt record of the cultivation of cacao in costa rica was documented in 1563

by 1962, 20,000 hectares of cacao had been planted by that time

cacao cultivation is back on the rise, reaching 4,500 hectares by 2017

Long before coffee, Costa Rican drank chocolate

The history of the
Brown Bean

By 1678, cacao cultivation had grown to about 134,000 trees, but most of the production had been taken over by foreigners who controlled 60% of the country’s production, with only 2% remaining in indigenous ownership.

By the end of the 17th century, production began to stagnate, due in part to orders from the authorities of Guatemala (Audiencia de Guatemala), proclaiming it illegal to use indigenous slave labor in the region. Investing in cacao also became less attractive because of difficult and costly logistics and rising competition from Venezuela and Ecuador.

But by the 1880s, cacao had made its first comeback, as Costa Rica sought to diversify its agricultural production. While coffee had become the country’s principal crop, Costa Rica was also looking to bananas and cacao, which would eventually rank second and third in agricultural exports. During this period and up until 1935, most of the cacao was planted in medium and large farms in the Atlantic province of Limón. Costa Rican cacao was sold mainly to the U.S. and England, with some regional exports to Colombia and Central America.

The time after WWII marked the second period of growth for the cacao industry, with exports reaching a record 11,000 metric tons by 1962. According to the Center for Tropical Agriculture and Higher Learning (CATIE), 20,000 hectares of cacao had been planted by that time.

By 1970 the world cacao market collapsed, putting pressure on Costa Rica’s cacao industry. And then, a catastrophe hit. Monilia— a devastating fungus that also affected the rest of Mesoamerica, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia—decimated cacao yields. By the end of the decade, exports fell by a whopping 96%, prompting many farmers to abandon cacao for bananas, plantains and tubers. Only 1,200 hectares of cacao remained.

To supply internal demand for chocolate, Costa Rica began importing cacao from the Dominican Republic and later from Peru and Colombia. By the new millennium Costa Rica’s landscape had changed, as growing investments in pineapple and bananas created hillsides of green deserts throughout the Atlantic slope. These crops are typically more dependent on pesticides and other agrochemicals, and the lands where they are planted are usually clear cut.

Today, thanks to a revival in demand for fine-flavor cacao that is feeding the growing craft chocolate market, cacao cultivation is back on the rise, reaching 4,500 hectares in 2017. While monilia is an ever-present threat, more resistant and productive species of cacao have been developed by CATIE. The center has been instrumental in producing improved cacao genetics from its clonal gardens for regional use. CATIE clones have also won international awards for flavor. And the local cacao community is actively selecting old cacao genetics for fine flavor, in order to distinguish Costa Rican cacao in the world marketplace.

As of 2007, Sibö Chocolate began doing its part to help create demand for this native crop, by using only Costa Rican beans for its internationally recognized chocolate creations. Sibö Chocolate hopes to see cacao find a permanent place among Costa Rica’s most important crops, as well as a return to a landscape rich in biodiversity where cacao plantations play an important role.

By 2019 fine-flavor beans from Costa Rica had been highlighted on leading international chocolate labels, as well as local export brands driven by quality and sustainability. (Excerpted from graduate study on Sibö Chocolate by Lisa Marrier, PAU-BAYONNE Ecole Universitaire de Management)

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Steps that

sweeten your life

Costa Rican Chocolate

Steps that

sweeten your life

Costa Rican Chocolate

The history of theBrown Bean

The history of the
Brown Bean