Chocolates Paria: the fruit of happiness
Texto: Erika Paz
Fotos: Raymar Velásquez / María Mercedes Rodríguez
Cocoa makes happy whoever sows it, that’s what Alida Quintero thinks, who has 21 years in contact with the plant and the magic of Paria. She came to the peninsula because she wanted to provide a peaceful life to her two children. But, she also found a space that offered peace to her because the farm she bought at the entrance to the village Chacaracual, ten minutes from Rio Caribe in Sucre state, came with a cocoa crop. Since then her dream was changed and oriented towards the sweet smell of chocolate, not only followed by her but also by her small family.
Alida loves the plant, cherishes it and seeks that everyone knows why this is the most aromatic cocoa in Venezuela. She has prepared herself to multiplying a passion that is being taken up in the country after it had been the mainstay of its economy in colonial times.
She decided not only to create chocolate in his factory but also she began to receive visits in her little paradise in the plantation, where gold-in-grain is found guarded by large trees to providing it with shade. This is a medium size tree that needs a protection without being overwhelmed. This is the answer why a-hundred-year-old trunks are next to the thin cocoa trees.
The visiting groups walk along the field learning from hostess’ voice or any of her employees’ that this used to be the sustenance of the country in the past, and that it’s time to resume its course. In Paria the harvest takes place between November and March, but Alida explains that Cahacaracual area is so generous because since 2013 they have harvested pods all year through. It is picked when it is ripe (becomes yellow) and then it is taken to a rug made with banana leaves, where fermentation takes place. “Everything depends on fermentation” the chocolate manufacturer explains “this makes the final product softer, more aromatic and tastier” This is a very thorough and precise process brought by Corsicans. Kernels are turned around every three days to complete six, for taking them to the sun.
Fruitful soil that can still give further
Only 1% of Chocolates Paria production utilizes cocoa planted in this farm. The rest is bought to local producers. This chocolate tastes better because the fermentation process is done organically, without any chemicals. The inhabitants of this land that owns a sea embracing the mountains share the harvest with yucca and banana trees. They know that the essential one becomes sweet. However, it has not achieved its ideal development yet. There are other small handicraft fabrics in the area, but Alida’s is the largest one. It produces five ton per month, but thanks to its growth the demand raised to twenty. She recalls that when everything started she used to visit every store to offer her product. “Unfortunately, today we have to leave customers out because we cannot cover their demand”. Our product is distributed through supermarkets, taverns and gourmet food stores in Venezuela, as well as their own store located in a shopping centre in Caracas.
The company in Sucre state, apart from having a shop for selling products and a factory, where daily they receive bags with cocoa to be dried, toasted, derailed and grinded. In Chocolates Paria neither natural fat is extracted from the kernels or soy lecithin added. The nibs are heated in their own butter for ten hours leaving the liquor to be tempered afterwards “under the adequate conditions it crystallizes to obtain a black, shiny chocolate which could be divided accurately.”
The tourists visit is almost over when they are taken to the packaging room where they can observe how the squares are wrapped as per their different percentages in ecological wrapping material, closely related to the surrounding nature.
Finally, they can taste and buy chocolates when visit the store, the dream of a woman who changed the Andean mountains for the blue sea. The best way to understand her love affair with Sucre state and its fruit is through the product she obtains from it. Smiling Alida says that “cocoa has theobromine, an alkaloid that makes neurotransmitters stimulate and generate excitement in people.” For her, chocolate is the source of happiness, and the driving force that changed her life. “When I got here I was not a chocolatier, and still I do not consider myself as such, but I know I have made an important progress.” She says that because she is well aware of the quality product she handles, which is processed in an organic way without any artificial flavour and emulsified with its own material. In short, Alida concludes, “It is very well grinded and made with love”.
