Philippines

It’s the 1950’s; your country is poor and in the throes of recovery from WWII— but in the south, there’s the promise of land. The …

In researching chocolate shops in Manila, I re-started the process several times. I couldn’t seem to find any chocolate makers in Manila, or even get …

I heard the word tablea— also spelled tableya— so many times over my first couple of weeks in the Philippines, back in early 2017. I …

“I almost give up… It’s very difficult, because you’re dealing with these farmers who have been in this practice for 40 years, 50 years. It’s …

The Davao City chocolate scene is quite developed, with nearly a dozen local chocolate makers using local cacao to make chocolate. More often than not, …

A commonly-quoted statistic is that the average age of a cacao farmer is 50 years old. That statistic comes from this 2014 article detailing studies …

“I would have thought that since cacao came into Asia through the Philippines, through that connection with Mexico, that the Philippines would be in as …

People often remark that Filipinos and Mexicans have a lot in common, and this isn’t pure coincidence. From cuisine and Catholicism to a parallel colonial …

“When you already have a product, you now have a story to tell about how this product came to be & where it all started.” …

To whomever actually reads the introduction, in many ways this is a list of places I want to travel to in the near future (a …