Monday, February 16, 2009

An Incredible Travel to the Chocolate Factory Diego!








dear Friends,

While we were having an incredible experience by the Atitlan Lake, we found one of the very few Cocoa Brewerie you can find in Guatemala, United States or even France (there are only 3 left in France).

Initially, we bought some "Diego"Chocolate at "ChiChi" in one of those places dedicated to local "women" in order to support their work.

We have immidiately fallen in love with it.
The way it is presented (see the picture), the flavors, the texture, the smell have absolutely nothing to do with our local Ghirardelli......

For the dark chocolate lover, it is like a Pilgrimage :-)

The Journey:

We took the boat, with our good friends Scott and his wife, to go to San Pedro La Laguna, from Panajachel.
In my opinion, this place is one of the most beautiful one I have ever been to.
Lake and Volcanos are part of a unique experience that reminds you how simple landscape can be so beautiful.

Once we were there, we have started to ask our way to find the Chocolate factory, to be honest, we were expecting a pretty large one.....

After having asked our way multiple times, we finally have found a little path, off one of the main street (10 min away from the center), which brought us to a little house where we found Diego and his family.

This was an incredible experience in 2009.....
Something you do not really expect (see pictures) at the 21st Century, and something you truelly welcome.
We spent a few hours enjoying the smell of the Cocoa brewerie.
Looking at Diego and his family working hard of the Cocoa Paste.

For some reasons, it has reminded me the thousands of belgium beer family breweries, you used to find all other the country 50 years ago :-)

We bought every single flavors we could find (orange, pure, cashew,coconut, coffee, macadamia....)

Because every single ingredient is obviously local and "green", the chocolate does not travel extremely well.....
This is another reason to eat it as quickly as you can!!!!

6 comments:

  1. Hi there

    I will be traveling through Central America for 4 months starting in August and I was wondering how to find this chocolate maker. I'm really interested in chocolate and I'm hoping to get as much info about the chocolate industry when I am down there.

    Thanks
    Dina

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  2. Well I have eaten a great deal of chocolate many places in the world, and the chocolate from San Pedro is without question the best I have ever tasted. There is absolutely nothing like it anywhere.

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  3. Yes, it is wonderful. My son just brought back one piece for me. I would love to know how to contact them. We also have a school group that visits Lake Atitlan in March, and a visit might be wonderful.

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  4. Diego's chocolate is the best. I'm addicted. Can't get enough. There are even more flavors now. The tienda I was just in had about 18 different flavors available!

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  5. Yes. Best I've ever had. Was in san Pedro about 8 years ago. If it travelled well, I'd ask them to send a box every month to UK. So many flavours. Texture is soft, it's not too sweet and it tastes divine. Unlike any other chocolate in the world.

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  6. Our chocolate is now available for purchase via Etsy! If you're outside the USA, please get in touch and we can arrange shipping for you as well. We can also set up a tour of the chocolate factory if you're at Lake Atitlan.

    http://www.etsy.com/shop/diegoschocolate

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