Ah, cacao! O beautiful
rhomboids, textured
in smooth roughness.
Only one of you
is ripe, but your
silken fruit is tangy
and sweet, brings
tears to my taste
and my eyes.
No one will make
chocolate from you,
friends; your
pods will decay, your
bitter seeds will drop,
nurture already
fertile soil.
You live on a coffee
farm and your beauty
remains unobserved.
The owner asks me
to speak a bit on the
origins and magic of
cacao. Bitter seeds
pair with bitter
coffee, but the pulp
remains heaven.
El Toledo is a generational family-run biodiverse and organic coffee farm in Atenas, Costa Rica. No, it’s not your typical coffee tour, and yes, it’s pretty much the way I would give a coffee tour if I gave coffee tours instead of hanging around with my real love, cacao. Well worth the time and money.