Bean to Bar - Lima, Peru - Part 1

Bean to Bar - Lima Peru
Part 1
December 2017

We got off the ship and met our driver for the day Robert. We were taking a cooking class that day and learning how to make chocolate. We were an hour early, so Robert took us to the market. The other day that we were there I saw a cacao bean, today we actually bought one. 

Then Robert took us to the chocolate place but we were still really early. We were dropped off and decided to walk around for a bit to see if there were any shops near by and to just kill time. We saw a bunch of fruit vendors that were moving and by that I mean there was a really big cart  that a guy or girl would move around kind of like a wheel barrel. 

Finally, it was time to go back and make chocolates! We walked in and smelled an amazing aroma of chocolate being made. The bean to bar cooking class had a cafe and a little shop. The shop had a bunch of different kinds of flavored like mango and black cherry. There was also a lot of different kinds of jams that all had chocolate as their base. My favorite was the orange chocolate jelly. After looking around a little bit our cooking class started. The whole class introduced themselves and there were a lot of people who said their name, where they were from, plus their favorite chocolate in Spanish. My favorite chocolate, if you asked me to be specific, would be 72% dark chocolate. The majority of our class, surprisingly, liked white chocolate. 

We started off the cooking class by the instructor showing us this really cool pot that is used to roast cacao beans. She had quite a few in there and she let us all take a picture stirring the cacao beans. Then the instructor gave us a  big handful of cacao beans. We could pick 10 same sized beans from that pile. Then we peeled one and tried it, personally,  I thought it was too bitter, but my Mom and Dad liked it. After we tried the cacao bean raw we peeled the other 9 and started smashing them with a mortar and pestle. It was actually a competition who could get the cacao beans to a peanut buttery consistence. We came in 2nd place the winners paste was starting to turn into liquid, that is how good he smashed it. 

We were using the chocolate to make two different types of hot chocolate. The first was a traditional drink that the Mayans made. The Mayan drink would usually have blood in it, but we did not do that for sanitary reasons and health regulations. I didn't like that drink at all, even without the blood. I thought it was too watery but my Dad liked it. The second drink was incredible. For this drink the main ingredients were cayenne, nutmeg, cinnamon and of course chocolate. Instead of water, this drink used milk. The second drink was warm and chocolaty with that little kick of heat.   It was the hot chocolate that was invented by the Conquistadors.