Description
About the Bar:
Goodnow Farms first tasted cacao from the Piura region of Peru over fifteen years ago, and they loved the bright and complex flavor notes. But until their friend (and cacao expert) Dan O’Doherty connected them with these beans, they hadn’t been inspired to make their own bar. He worked closely with the community to perfect their harvesting, fermenting and drying techniques, and the resulting beans are exceptionally flavorful.
About The Piura Beans:
Thousands of years ago cacao originated in the vibrant and tropical Amazon basin. Local communities used the delicious cacao fruit and seeds in everyday life, so when they migrated to different areas they brought cacao along with them.
The ancestors of Peru’s Puerta Pulache community left the jungle basin, traveled west across the Andes mountains, and settled in the Piura region’s Sechura desert river valley. Not only did they introduce cacao as a species in this region, but they introduced a specific genetic type of cacao from the fruit they brought with them. Trees grew naturally from seeds, and for thousands of years the cacao was cultivated into what exists today.
The Piura cacao is truly unique and commonly referred to as “Piura Blanco.” When you crack open a fresh fruit pod and look at the raw beans, about 1/3 of the beans are white, 1/3 are lavender and 1/3 are deep purple. These beans are not genetically “Criollo,” but instead closer to the Ecuador “Nacional” genetics, which makes sense as the borders of Peru and Ecuador meet in the Amazon basin where cacao originated.
There are many communities in the Piura region that have similar stories of ancestors migrating west from the Amazon basin and settling among the narrow river valleys, and many of them grow and process their own cacao. As each Piura community may have slightly different genetics, terroir, harvest, fermentation and drying practices, cacao origin flavors vary. That, of course, is the beauty of distinct, single origin cacao flavors.
