With a complex citrus note, honey and flower, the cocoa beans of the Maranhão from this bar were fermented in an exquisite way by the Bom Jardim Community, located on the banks of the Acará River, in Barcarena, Pará. The brothers Manoel do Carmo ( Xiba ), Raimundo, João and Monteiro da Silva represent the riverside people of Bom Jardim through their dedication, resilience and pursuit of excellence.
Wanted by university students who developed a social work together with the Cooperativa de Barcarena and the riverside people of the Bom Jardim Community, César was invited to develop a chocolate with the native cacao from the banks of the Acará River, which would involve the extractivists and growers of the fruit in the region. . It was in this experiment with the students that César met Xiba, an expert woodsman and a deep connoisseur of this primary, humid and dense forest.
From the first unsuccessful attempt, which resulted in an extremely bitter tasting chocolate, a very unique and special partnership was born. Very interested in learning about the pre-processing of cocoa beans, Xiba started to follow César's guidelines and to delve into the experiments of the fermentation process with great dedication and determination.
The chocolatier points out that in this process a true “microbial dance” takes place that determines the flavor the chocolate will have. As an alchemist, Xiba induced the behavior of microorganisms and created
four different fermentation processes and, consequently, cocoa samples. César was impressed and the two began to work together not only to improve the process, but also to strive for excellence in the production of perfect chocolate bar. Certainly a partnership that would change their lives forever.
With a complex citrus note, honey and flower, often of roses (rare to find in Brazilian cocoa), Chocolate Bom Jardim is pleasant and pleasant on the palate. This is because it has a soft touch of overfermentation that makes the cocoa alkaline and better expresses its aromatic and delicate notes. This joint discovery by César and Xiba had great international repercussion, highlighting Chocolate Bom Jardim in several publications in Europe and also earning Chocolatier a prestigious invitation to Clube Criollo. " From eating my own chocolate made with my cocoa, the fruit of my fermentation work, I see that the victory I thought in the long term is already happening ", confesses Xiba .
“Why did the Xiba chocolate show notes of flower, more precisely of roses? I work with several cacaos from the Amazon, of the same variety Maranhão, and none of them had these notes. Only the one from Xiba. Xiba had made an extraordinary discovery without even knowing or understand, that these notes so rare and delicate appeared in the overfermentation, when a precise control of this process is carried out. Finding that balance is the big key, and somehow Xiba is over guiding me to discover this.” – Cesar DeMendes
Chocolate Bom Jardim harmonizes with tea, coffee and also wine. The cocoa that integrates its composition is of the Maranhão variety and is found in the middle of the primary forest with the lowland biome, which gives it unique and differentiated sensory characteristics. However, it should be noted that although the Maranhão variety has this name, it is not found in the homonymous state. It is so called because the first cocoa export to Europe, in the period of the Portuguese empire in Brazil, left Belém/Cametá for Portugal, the state of Maranhão and Grão-Pará, as the region that covered from the state became known. from Ceará to the extreme north of Brazil. There are three brothers, Raimundo and João, in addition to Manoela do Carmo (Xiba), sons of Armínio Bentes da Silva, a rubber tapper and woodsman, and Dona Jandira (Joana Monteiro da Silva), united in the culture of forest management, extractivists and cultivators. of açaí and cocoa, who lead and coordinate this initiative with the Bom Jardim Community.
SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
The brothers of the Silva family manage an area of 200 hectares, preserved and inhabited by many animals and plant species. The work with cocoa in the Bom Jardim community directly impacts 200 people. From harvesting to production, we seek to be responsible, supportive and socioeconomically fair.
OTHER INGREDIENTS AND SUPPLIERS *
- Brown Sugar: supplied by COPAVI – Cooperativa de Produção Agropecuária Vitória, located in Paranacity, in the northwest of the state of Paraná. Founded in 1993, from the Santa Maria settlement, with just 236 hectares and 61 inhabitants, COPAVI is the longest-running experience in collective and solidary production in Paraná.
* eventual changes in the supplier may happen due to the availability of the product.
Bom Jardim Chocolate - 63% Cocoa
Geographic coordinates of the cocoa harvesting location: 1° 37′ 39.06′′ S | 48° 27′ 43.95′′ W
Barcarena - Rio Acará - Pará - Amazon - Brazil
