Hawaii: In Real Life ~ Madre Chocolate

Did you know that Madre Chocolate is Oahu’s only true “field to table” chocolate? Hawaii is the only state that grows (or is even able to grow) cacao. In parts of the United States, you can find places that process chocolate; many Hawaii cacao growers send their beans off to the mainland for mass production. But Madre actually processes relatively small batches of cacao beans in a little shop in Kailua, making them an exclusive bean-to bar company.

They’re at the tail end of a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to purchase a select lot of aromatic cacao directly from traditional growers in the Xoconusco region of Chiapas, in Southern Mexico. Their hope is to keep the cacao from an area that keeps the traditional chocolate practices alive. They need to raise $15,000 by August 14, however, or the kickstarter funds pledged will not be taken. (Basically, Kickstarter is an “all or nothing” fundraising campaign.)

We’ve seen them in stores and at Eat The Street, but we wanted to see their products up close. Here’s a quick look at the Madre Chocolate team and some of their specialty chocolates.

We also got to see how they actually produce the chocolate, which is a fascinating process in itself, rarely seen by regular consumers. Check the video at HawaiiIRL.com to show how they do it.