 And welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer series. I'm your host today, Stephanie Mock, and I share this hosting gig with Pomai Weigert and Matt Johnson, who you often see on the show. We like to think of our show as an opportunity to talk with local farmers and businessmen and women who help supply our local food scene and agricultural supply here in Hawaii. They have a very special guest on our show today. Our show is titled Parade of Farms Nalo Style, and we're featuring Manoa Chocolate. Parade of Farms is an annual agricultural event hosted by a Wahu Resource Conservation and Development Council, and it's held every May. And the goal behind it is really to cultivate local community by getting the local community to know their local farmers and vice versa. So it's a one-day event that brings together farmers and guests from around the Wahu to learn about what is agriculture here in Hawaii, how can we support it, and what is the future of agriculture for not only our farmers, but also all the local businesses that rely on local agriculture. So today we're featuring Tamara Butterbaugh, chocolate sommelier, I apologize if I said that wrong, who is part of Manoa Chocolate Hawaii. And the reason we're featuring Tamara today is because she is actually going to be part of our Parade of Farms, which is happening May 5th at the Waimanalo Research Station. This event will be featuring 10 different farms throughout Waimanalo, so guests can come visit and learn and see behind the scenes of all these local farms and all these local cool things that are happening right in our backyards that you may not know about. So Manoa Chocolate Hawaii has been around since 2010, and Tamara and her husband Dylan, as well as extended family have really, really accelerated the local chocolate business here. So I'm going to be talking to us today about what is chocolate, how cacao is grown, and basically what their business is today and what people will see on the Parade of Farms tour. So right now I'd like to extend a warm welcome to our guest, Tamara. Hi. Hi. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. So I thought it was really funny that we hosted your husband on Think Tech Hawaii today, so it's truly a Manoa Chocolate Day on Think Tech Hawaii. So I appreciate you coming out and maybe talking a bit more about the farming side of it. I know that Dylan was talking about, you know, being a small business and expanding and growing that business here locally. So you know, you're going to be featured on tour two, which is called Waimanalo Riches, and guests will be able to come view your homestead and just learn about who you guys are, what your business is, and how you support local agriculture here in Hawaii. So I just want to learn a little bit about who you are as a person. Why are you a chocolate sommelier? And then what is Manoa Chocolate? Sure. Absolutely. Thanks so much, Stephanie, for featuring us. Just before coming on the program today, I looked at the agenda and what we're going to discuss. And I said to Dylan, our founder, chocolate maker, and owner, what is our mission? Because we're very mission-oriented as a company. Of course, it's about plants, people, profit, making a local industry here in Hawaii. But first and foremost, it's actually didn't start at all with chocolate. OK. Chocolate was an avenue for a much greater, deeper goal, being here in Hawaii and looking to the future of this place and what kind of impact we would want. And he said, the mission is to plant trees. Wow. The mission is for forestry in the state. And so that's really the root of all of this for us as a company. So how we fell into it is we both, I guess our story, you know, our husband and wife actually met in high school at Kalaheo. Oh, OK. Kind of high school sweethearts. And had. That's so dear. That's just all. Warms my heart. Yeah. And we always had a lot of passion for business. We kind of had that fire in each other and saw that. And we were both really passionate about taking care of the environment. And we pursued that in college. So I got a degree in sustainable development, environmental studies. And Dylan and I are around the same age, graduated the same year. But he really loves to travel. He's like a citizen of the world. And he did a lot of surfing and took his time figuring out what his career path would be. Whereas I went straight to sustainable consulting, green business consulting, looking at waste management systems and recycling. So he kind of took his time, traveled the world, and was just trying to scratch his head. Like, I know I want to start a business, but what exactly is that going to be? So he looked at solar energy. He dabbled in all different established industries in the sustainability space. And ultimately, it just so happened that he became friends with somebody who was getting their master's degree focusing on this plant, theobroma cacao. So this right here is the tropical fruit that chocolate comes from. It's cacao. And our good buddy, Dan O'Dorty, who started a consulting firm after he got his master's degree at the College of Tropical Ag, anyway, they became friends. And everything clicked. All the things we care about. Something that is based in Hawaii. Something that is uniquely grown here, that as a global economy, the way we taste and enjoy and think about the supply chain and chocolate is changing. And we happen to be the only state in the United States that has the capacity to grow this plant in a commercially viable way. Of course, Puerto Rico and Samoa can as well. But everything just lined up. This is an industry that we can build forests. We can go to the land. We can remove invasive species. We can have, it needs, it fundamentally needs a canopy. It likes shade and it likes protection from wind. So you have to go in and cultivate a forest. And then you can grow cacao. And of course, we, I love and honor and appreciate native plants. And that's part of my personal goal in what I do with my land and our farm in Wamanalo. And so, you know, you always want to have a focus on native species. So cacao was actually introduced to the state. So it's introduced from different places all over the world in the tropics. So it's native to South America. And it grows all up and down central in South America. Now it's in the Caribbean. It's in Southeast Asia. And it's actually a lot in Samoa. So chocolate is coming from all over the world, brought to Hawaii. But it's not an invasive tree. So it's great because you have to build your canopy, your wind blocks, your forest. And you can choose native species and oolu and like breadfruit. And we just got so excited because, you know, farming for farming sake or reforesting and land restoration is powerful enough. But then to also, and then building businesses is powerful enough. You know, you're just having industry. But to have all those three things come together where you're both restoring land, growing something, it's based in agriculture. And then you're manufacturing something that's uniquely made there. And then you have a global distribution network around the world. And then you're teaching people about something that we all think we understand and know about. Right. And yet we have no idea. Yeah. Everyone grows up with chocolate. Yeah. You know, everyone's eating chocolate all the time. But taking that back a couple of steps and like learning all the work that goes into it and learning more about the plant. Right. Yeah. So it's just great. It's such a fun industry and I'm so happy that we fell into it. And as soon as Dylan was able to build the business up enough, I transitioned to help him grow the company. So my job is managing the tasting team, our team of chocolate sommeliers. And what that means is just like a sommelier who enjoys educating people about wine. Different grapes have different varietals and different flavor profiles. I mean, you have entire nations built in the culture of tasting and enjoying wine. And that's so special. I've learned about the soil and the climate and the place. The same is true for chocolate. It's just that what most of the world is used to consuming is a mass-produced blend of cacao where we're not telling the story of the place where it came from. So that's what we're accustomed to. So I mean, I must have been 24 until I actually knew that chocolate came from this fruit. And that's just crazy to me. So that disconnection in the supply chain is just mind-boggling. And then once you start to understand the whole processing, it's very much nuanced like wine and coffee. And there's so much to share. That's the other piece that we're really passionate about is this idea of tourism coming from an authentic place where you can go and visit somewhere. And you want to know about the rainfall patterns, about the soil, the climate. And then there's something that's very real, that a visceral experience that people can enjoy and taste and learn the story of the fruit. And take home as well. And take home and share and remember Hawaii. And then locally, I mean, tourists can enjoy it, but our local community, there's so much more to learn about all the places that surround us and go deeper into the mountains and really learn about the growers and the rivers. And yeah, so there's a lot of potential there. And chocolate is a vehicle to tell those stories and to do farming, basically. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I don't know where to go from there. Maybe I should explain how chocolate's made for everybody. Yeah, let's start with the process of growing the cacao. You mentioned the windbreaks and the forest, but how long does it take to make this fruit? Right. So cacao, it takes about three and a half years before you're going to get your first flower. Okay. And they're beautiful little flowers. I'll kind of show you guys an image of it. Let's see here. I don't know if you guys can see this. This is the cacao flower. Does that work for you? Close enough. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an orchid. So if you come on the Parade of Farms tour, the beautiful part is our trees are about, in Waimanala, we have trees at every stage of growth. There's one that are about six months old, so you can see them before they do their jorquette. So after about six months, they do their radial architecture. And they kind of look like these little buds. And then we have five-year-old and six-year-old trees, so you've got to see them. At the end of their harvest season, so in Hawaii, they start to produce fruit. There's a kind of early harvest in November, December, and a later harvest right about now. So some of the trees that harvested or produced fruit early last season are starting to set their flowers again. So for the Parade of Farms, we'll have some flowers on the trees, and you'll get to see different varieties. So essentially, three and a half years, the flower, and then this image shows. You can see the photo of this flower and my finger. And so it's about the size of a dime, super tiny and petite. Something kind of neat is that there's an endemic native pollinator that's a species found only here that gets into this tiny flower. Is it a bee? Is it a type of? It's called a midge. Oh, OK. There's all the midges all over the tropics, but we have one specific species that's a native. It's found only here, so it's just unique and beautiful. And then once it pollinates the flower, it turns into a tiny little pod called a cherelle, so you can see relative to that water droplet, how teeny it is. And then it'll take about six months to develop into it until it's about the size of this football shape. Only six months. Yeah, six months. All right. And then it'll do that every year for about 20 to sometimes 30 years. You're going to get your most productive years, year 20. After that, they start to kind of, they'll not be as productive, but you can have ancient trees that are about 100 years old. So you were talking about you have to create this canopy and they tend to be understory. How tall can they get when they're mature? So cacao can be 40, 50, sometimes 80 feet tall, but that's if it happens to be in a puka where there's sunlight in the rainforest and it's reaching high and it's left to nature, but typically they like to be under the shade of larger trees. So if you're cultivating in orchard, you want to keep them about 15, not more than 20 feet tall for ease of harvest to make it more efficient. Yeah. So you're not climbing up 40, 80 feet to collect fruit. Yeah. And just to be clear, this is maybe something good to describe. It's a distinction so that people understand our role and what's happening in Hawaii. We are, at this time, Manoa chocolate, we are makers. We are chocolate makers. We are artists. We craft cacao beans. Actually, I have some beans here, which I'll explain in the process, into dark chocolate bars. So the term we use is bean to bar. And here we have the chocolate bar. So that's kind of like if we celebrate farmers when we go to restaurants and we talk about the farm to table movement. So that's where you know where your ingredients are coming from. In the world of chocolate manufacturing, we would be like farm to table, but in this case it's bean to bar. So we're makers. We're craftsmen. It's sort of like being a micro brewery and having a brew master or being at the winery and you have somebody who's making the wine. And that's different than somebody who's cultivating the grapes and in the vineyard. Sometimes they're vertically integrated, but we actually support farmers by purchasing the dried seed. So I guess we'll get back to that after the break. We're going to take a quick break right now. We've had Tayamara Butterball of Manoa Chocolate, Hawaii, talking about extensive knowledge about cacao. And when we come back after our break, she'll talk a little bit more about how that chocolate is made. You know, she mentioned that they are artists. They are craftsmen who make this bean to bar chocolate here in Hawaii and sourcing not only locally sourced cacao, but also from around the world, creating these very unique bars that we're going to try later on our show, which our producers tried earlier and we're having a field day with trying all the different types of chocolate. So we'll be right back after these quick messages. Thanks. Everyone, I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech, Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Despeng, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech, Hawaii. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark, and every Monday at one o'clock, I'm the host of Think Tech, Hawaii's research in Manoa. In that program, we bring to you a whole range of new scientific results from the university, ranging from everything from exploring the solar system to looking at the Earth from space, going underwater, talking about earthquakes and volcanoes, and other things which have a direct relevance, not only to Hawaii, but also to our economy. So please try and join me one o'clock on a Monday afternoon to Think Tech, Hawaii's research in Manoa, and see you then. Welcome back. We're in our Think Tech, Hawaii studio today with Tamara Butterbaugh, Manoa Chocolate, Hawaii. Chocolate sommelier, very fancy French word for connoisseur, craftsman, artiste, if you will, of this bean to bar chocolate that they use locally sourced cacao, but also cacao sourced from throughout the world, the Caribbean, Central, South America, et cetera. So she's joining us today to talk about what is Manoa chocolate, how cacao is grown, how they make their chocolate, their locally made chocolate, and then we'll talk a little bit about their involvement in purée de farms and how you, the audience, can come see how they do this work in person. So we just left off talking about nibs and, you know, she was talking about cacao, so we're going to look inside cacao fruit right now, learn a little bit about the process of making chocolate, and then we're just going to have a field day tasting chocolate. All of you guys will be jealous about all the chocolate we get to eat. So let's go on. We just talked about cacao trees. Let's talk about the fruit now. Right. So we were just talking about the distinction between us as makers and growers. We hope to, and we will eventually become vertically integrated and create our own cacao supply. Good catchphrase, sustainable development. One of the main issues we, you know, we face right now is supply. It's such a new industry for the state, so it's so exciting. There are farms on every island, but there's not enough Hawaiian chocolate, which is a good problem because there's a lot more opportunity for new industry and growth. So we will become vertically integrated. But for now, and also part of our mission is to support other farmers that are already growing cacao. So not every grower necessarily wants to start a chocolate factory. They're sort of distinct arts. And it's really important for the local farmers to understand what quality means for this style of chocolate and how we can, as a state, as a region, set ourselves apart relative to the rest of the world. So people would actually want to come and visit and taste Hawaiian chocolate just like you would go to Napa Valley and enjoy a nice wine. So what that means is the farmers who are responsible, they're responsible for the post-harvest handling, the harvesting, the fermentation, and the drying. So we're going to open up this pod now and show you this beautiful, interesting tropical fruit. This is cacao. It looks very strange. If you were to chop it in half, it almost looks like a mango steam. There's about 30 to 60 seeds inside. It's this cluster of fruit. This is perfectly ripe. Oh my gosh, it's delicious. Do you want to try one, Stephanie? Sure. You can just go ahead and take a fruit and suck the sweet pulp like a Jolly Rancher. OK. Yeah, it's really super sweet and sour. It's delicious. So don't chew or bite into it. And we have this little napkin here that you can just dispose of it after if you want. But how's the fruit? It's pretty sweet. I didn't think it was candy. I thought you were slightly exaggerating, to be honest. But it's pretty sweet. No, it's delicious. It's like the nectar of the gods. It's so luxurious and sour. Sometimes it tastes like a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Sometimes it tastes like more cantaloupe. Sometimes it's almost lemony. Yeah, it tastes a little bit like cantaloupe. It tastes nothing like chocolate. So the sweet pulp surrounds this bitter, dark purple seed. Sometimes there's a white seed. There's different varieties. And they all have different fruit tones, flavor compounds inside. It's sort of like Granny Smith versus Mount Fuji apples. There's a lot of varieties. Just like when people enjoy wine, you might have a Pinot Noir and you might have a cab. So you can appreciate the differences. So chocolate is harvested at peak ripeness. You can even start to measure the bricks level, the sugar content, and the fruit. You build these wooden box systems. So this is on site on the farm one to two days after it's been harvested while still fresh. And all the content of the cacao fruit is scooped out with the sweet pulp and the bitter seed. These pods, the pod walls, are discarded. They're usually put at the base of the tree to feed back to the soil. You can't actually eat it even though it looks like a pumpkin. And what's happening is in a wooden box system, there may be like one to two feet off the ground. And there's going to be a roof covering it up. There's going to be wild yeast in that particular microclimate. And it's going to interact with the sugars. And everything's going to spike in temperature. It's going to get hot. Just like a compost pile is going to get hot. So as it spikes in temperature, there's a lot of microbial activity happening. And you're going to monitor the temperature and introduce oxygen at just the right moment at the right time. So it's about a five to seven day process. Chemistry, science, geeky stuff, which I have had an expert. And we rely on the farmers to do this part of the job. And it's literally the most important step, we believe, in quality. So a particular cacao region might have certain soil, might have certain genetics. But you're not going to be able to taste those subtle things unless the beans are fermented properly. So if the process of five to seven days of basically kind of stewing and its own fruit getting hot, the flavors are chemically changing. And it's bringing out the qualities of the bean. If that goes well, you're going to taste maybe like peachy, bright, fruity tones. Or maybe it doesn't have such a fruity flavor. Maybe it's just naturally more of a spicy nutty bean. But you're going to be able to taste those things. And if the fermentation doesn't go well and the beans aren't dried properly after, you're going to start to taste things like mold. Or it'll almost be like eating burnt bark. It'll be astringent and bitter. So as a maker, our primary job is purchasing the raw beans from the growers. And that's 90% of where quality comes from is sourcing. So for example, these are beans from a really special farm in Costa Rica. And that's a variety called Catango. It's heirloom chocolate. Just like you have heirloom tomatoes, really special varieties. It smells like cinnamon. I have a terrible sense of smell, but that smells amazing. It's kind of fruity like an apricot meets a cinnamon. This one has a different color. I don't know if you guys can see that. This is Kahaluu. Oh my gosh, we have a farmer in Kahaluu, Mapele fields. And he's getting a lot better in his post-harvest handling over the years. And that's the kind of interactions we love. And it almost smells kind of fruity and like bananas, like drying bananas. And so what we'll do as makers is taste this raw, analyze the flavor. And then in our factory in Kahaluu town, where we make everything, we'll use a coffee roaster to custom roast the beans. So it's a lot like the coffee industry as well. Carefully develop the flavor. And then we'll do a process where we separate the outer shell from the inner beans. I don't know if you guys can see that here. And then what you have here is pure cacao. So this is yummy. This is like a crunchy. Do you want to try one? You can take a bean, remove the shell. So what we're doing here in the studio is something that anybody can come to our factory in Kahaluu. Walk-ins are welcome, nine to five. We have chocolate sommeliers on the floor and views into the factory production. And we'll just go over all the details of how chocolates made, really educate people so that when we go to do the free tasting at the end and try chocolates from different regions of the world, including the regions that we have locally sourced, they can appreciate what's influencing the differences in flavor. So this is kind of nutty and like a walnut. This is pure chocolate. Do you like it? Is it too intense? I like that better than chocolate. It's really good. That's a little weird. So it's pretty intense, but this bean is high quality. It's been well harvested, fermented, dried, and roasted. So there's. Which one did I try again? It's literally pure chocolate. It's roasted. So this is going to be from actually Esmeraldas Ecuador. So this is a farm we work with in Ecuador. And there are some of the cutting edge. They're doing a beautiful job working with their local university there. It's a really great family-owned farm that reclaimed cattle pasture and reforested and started doing cacao, choosing native varieties of that region. So it's a good example of what we want to do here in Hawaii. Anyway, they do a beautiful job. So the fact that you can eat pure chocolate with no sugar and find it yummy and kind of want to keep going back is a sign of high quality. And so when we go to the next step is to take these, what are known as nibs. And we have them here. It's pure cacao. I'll give you guys an analogy. Nibs are to chocolate what peanuts are to peanut butter. So when you come to a factory, you can see the nibs get loaded into the stone grinders. And because it's 50% to 60% cocoa butter, the cell walls are going to break, the oils in motion, and it just turns into liquid chocolate. So there's nothing else that's needed for this to become chocolate. It just transforms, and you'll see the oils in motion. We do add a little bit of sugar, but not a lot. And so we're called ma noa because actually in Hawaiian language, that means depth, deep, thick, solid, vast. And so the style of chocolate that we make is true to style of the American craft chocolate bean tabar movement, which is to only add the nibs and the sugar so that you're tasting the essential quality of that place, and it's coming through. So the sugar that we add is pure cane sugar, and it allows you to taste the subtleties of that region. So I was having fun with the team talking earlier. Like, you know, we're both, it's a craft and an art. And art is valuable for art's sake, just to express yourself. Art for art's sake. And agriculture is valuable, obviously, because it's how everything in the world goes around. But this is an art based in agriculture, and then instead of just expressing ourselves as artists, we're actually trying to express the way, like, elements of that place that you can actually taste. So it's coming from the soil, and it's coming from the genetics, and the way the farmers handle the beans. So we're stripping down the recipe so you can taste that region. So that's kind of like our goal. And it matters to Hawaii to do it this way and to taste other regions so that the world becomes aware that chocolate is complex. Chocolate isn't just chocolate. You know, we're used to mass blends where we're designing it to taste the same. Well, that's what commercial candy is. But with craft chocolate, you want to appreciate the range of flavors that the world has to offer, and then eventually we can do that here in Hawaii by Ahupua. So that's the ultimate goal. Oh my goodness. I love that your organization focuses, basically it sounds like happy plants, happy people, happy profit, you know, in a way that coordinates all these different, you have the art, you have the people, you have the plants and the reforestation efforts that you guys are working on. Thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having us. You know, I spoke too soon. I said we were going to eat all the chocolate on air, and I guess we'll just have to do that behind the scenes. Yeah, after party. You all wish you could be here, don't you? So instead of watching us eat chocolate, I encourage you to go to their shop in Kailua town and do these free tastings. And you can learn more and you can actually see the chocolate being made right there. Yeah, we're up above Cinnamon's restaurant in Kailua town off of Ulu Nio Street. So just walk on upstairs. We also have a taster room that we opened in Waikiki at the Hyatt Regency on the ground floor behind the Urban Outfitters. And you can also schedule a formal tour by calling us 262-6789. And you can schedule a deep dive with the makers. And it's just like doing a brewery or a winery tour. So come visit and taste for yourself. And also you can come see Manoa chocolate at Parade of Farms, which is Saturday, May 5th at the Waimanalo Research Station. This event will be featuring 10 farms throughout Waimanalo, including Manoa chocolate homestead where you'll see cacao trees and those little flowers that she was trying to show us. And maybe try some of their Manoa chocolate there. So we encourage you to go to manoachocolate.com or check out parade-of-farms.org to learn more about Manoa chocolate and how you can come visit them Saturday, May 5th. Thank you, until next time.