Africa is the world’s largest producer of cacao, in particular of the “bulk cacao” used by the chocolate industry, which tends to focus more on productivity than on quality. Therefore, when speaking of African cacao little do people realize how surprising the precious sensory aspects of its raw material can be. We want to debunk this prejudice against African cacao with a special chocolate produced using beans from Tanzania in East Africa, famous for its places of natural beauty such as Mount Kilimanjaro. The beans come from the area of Mbingu (Paradise in Swahili) where a cacao cultivation project has been set up which will surprise even the most sceptical. Mbingu is a small village which looks onto the stupendous Udzungwa Mountains National Park, in the Kilombero Valley of the Morogoro region. It is here that Kokoa Kamili has organized a community of cacao farmers who are producing an exceptional fruit, thanks to complete control of the channeling system, and which once transformed into chocolate will astound your palates. A “virtuous network” of cacao harvesting has been created with the 19 villages nearby which now counts more than 2000 families of small farmers. These also include the MbinguSisters whose village convent supports in this way a large part of the charity work it does: the running of a hospital, a school and an orphanage. The channeling system is guaranteed and the origin of the cacao can be traced. The cacao is constantly monitored during the processes of fermentation, drying, classification and selection.

72,5% min. Cacao. Organic raw cacao beans, organic coconut blossom sugar, organic raw cacao butter; Emulsifier: organic sunflower lecithin. May contain traces of milk and nuts.

Particularly intense chocolate with notes of citrus and tamarind, passion fruit, red fruits and molasses, cream, flowers, lemongrass, lemon balm and final nuts.

NUTRITIONAL VALUE FOR 100 g

Organic

Country of origin: Tanzania
Region: Mbingu
Genetics: Trinitario
Fermentation: wooden boxes
Produced by: Kokoa Kamili

50 g

The image chosen for this bar aims to represent the “take-off” of Africa into high quality cacao production. Our young girls are raising their arms to the sky, as if ascending into a new era, a new path, one which Kokoa Kamili has taken with its associates, assuring them a higher than standard price as fair recompense for their toil. We hope this will lead not only to increasingly greater attention being paid to cacao production, but also to the safeguarding of the natural environment of this corner of Paradise, with its great river which flows through the valley and supplies the necessary water for the survival of all living beings, also during the period in which there is no rain which can last for 7-8 months. We hope that in the future it will continue to be a safe haven for its enormous variety of flora and fauna, such as mountain elephants.
Photo Elena Ticozzi Valerio ©

Kokoa Kamili Tanzania