This chocolate bar is a collaboration between Kasama and YI SHI Cacao. It features cacao beans sourced from a single estate: Maya Farm in Pingtung, Taiwan.
“Olivia is a curator of bean-to-bar chocolate tasting experiences, driven by a passion for uniting people through immersive chocolate appreciation and education. As a certified Level 2 IICCT Chocolate Taster, with over a decade of experience as a baker from her previous business, she brings a refined palate and deep dedication to celebrating the unique flavours and aromas of craft chocolate. Through YI SHI Cacao Collective, Olivia shares the captivating story of Taiwan cacao through chocolate-inspired events.
It took Olivia four hours of combined bus and train rides, followed by a half-hour walk, to finally catch her first glimpse of Maya Farm’s cacao trees. Surrounded by coconut palms and banana trees, these trees contribute to the land’s rich biodiversity. A fish pond on the farm, part of an aquaponics system, helps the cacao trees thrive naturally.
Maya Farm’s cacao trees tend to produce fruit-forward beans, showcasing tropical fruit notes of ripe apricot, heirloom mango, with a hint of guava and floral finish.
YI SHI Cacao 怡室 means ‘joyful room’, a friendly and relaxed place to learn and explore bean-to-bar chocolate. We curate immersive chocolate tasting experiences that honour the rich stories and diverse origins of cacao.!
Kasama Chocolate is a group of friends from Vancouver; Stefan, Dom, Oliver and Vince, who started making small batch, bean-to-bar chocolate with cocoa from the Philippines in 2015.
It all started when Vince’s dad, Mario, sent a picture of himself holding what he thought were mangoes on their small family property in the northern Philippines. They weren’t mangoes though, they were cacao pods hanging from the branches of a cacao tree.
One fateful evening, the friends decided to meet up for beers at their favourite watering hole in Vancouver, a weekly ritual at the time. Vince nonchalantly broke the news about cacao pods growing on the family property. It wasn’t a big deal until Stefan and Oliver suggested that it would be great if Mario could bring back some samples to see and taste. A month later, they had a ziplock bag full of dried, fermented cacao beans from the Cagayan Valley. And what do you do with cacao beans? You make chocolate of course! And so began their adventure into the world of bean-to-bar chocolate making.
Kasama is a word which means friendship, camaraderie and collaboration.
Kasama's award winning chocolate is hand-crafted in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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