Announcing our newest Soma Origin!
Beloved Somafans!
We write to you from bed. We have just flown back on an overnight flight from a hectic trip to Indonesia, and we are exhausted. We plan to spend as much of today as possible rugged up in bed or on the couch, drinking hot cups of Soma Cacao. Our cat Snowbell, exhausted from her business trip to the garden this morning, seems intent on doing the same.
In Indonesia we spent a week in Flores, a volcanic island in the Lesser Sunda archipelago, inhabited by two million people who speak twenty-five different languages. Flores (which means ‘flowers’ in Portuguese) was named for the millions of bright red flamboyant trees on its east coast. It is famous for three things: it is the home of the Komodo Dragon; until 10,000 years ago it was inhabited by a 3-foot-tall race of pre-historic humans; and it is one of the only majority-Catholic islands in Indonesia.
Portuguese traders introduced cacao to Flores as early as the 16th Century, but made no attempts to systematically farm it. The Dutch, who controlled Flores from the 1850s to the 1940s, found it too mountainous and jungly for large-scale cacao farming, but did encourage small farmers to grow it. Today there are tens of thousands of small cacao farms on Flores Island, generally containing less than a hundred trees each, as well as countless wild cacao trees dotted through the jungle.
We were introduced to Floresian cacao by Septania and Michael, the couple behind IKAT Cacao. They have a beautiful story, which is not dissimilar to our own: they met in Bali three years ago, and fell in love. On their third date, Michael (a German entrepreneur) asked Septania, who grew up in a remote Floresian village, if she dreamed of returning home. Septania spoke about a vision she had of collecting cacao from the small farmers she had known in her youth, helping them process it with world-class equipment, and selling it to companies overseS. Michael was inspired, stayed up the rest of the night researching, and in the morning sent Septania a nine-page business proposal. That proposal became IKAT Cacao.
In a few years, IKAT has made amazing progress. They now collect cacao pulp from several hundred small-scale farmers, ferment it in teak boxes, and dry it in heat-controlled greenhouses. They have collected data on every stage of the process to perfect the cacao they sell, and also to help automate as much of their decision-making as possible. The cacao they’re selling us is rich and sweet, with blueberry and vanilla notes. It grows among clove and nutmeg trees and vanilla vines, and has a little hint of spice. We are really impressed by it, and expect it to be one of our best-sellers.
We leave Flores in awe of the beauty of the place, the endless rice paddies, volcanic cliffs, and fragrant jungle. We leave excited about what the future holds for Flores Cacao at Soma (true to form, Michael has furnished us with a 19-page document of ideas for future collaborations). And we leave deeply touched by how lucky we are to do the work we do.
As part of our tour of the island, Septania arranged for us to meet with many of the local farmers. Until IKAT began, they had sold their cacao to Chinese traders who have a reputation for price-gouging, scale-tampering, underpaying, and exploitative behaviour. Michael and Septania pay on average 40% more than the Chinese traders, plus they have pledged 5% of their revenue to local projects, and operate various partnership programmes with loyal farmers. One farmer, Andreas, as he proudly showed us his annual bonus certificate (which he had laminated and tacked up on the wall of his house), talked of the education he could now give his daughter (who also works at IKAT in quality control), and the healthcare he could afford for himself. Andreas and his wife work their farm together, but he confessed that his proudest moment was the day he went in his best clothes to collect his partnership certificate at IKAT headquarters, received a round of applause from the whole team, and spotted an old girlfriend watching him from the audience.
One of our plans with IKAT involves selling a co-branded product which, among many other things, will offer our customers in Australia the chance to see how the small (20kg) batch of cacao they’re drinking was processed, on what dates and at what temperatures, where on Flores it grew, and even a photo of the farmer who grew it. When Alistair asked Andreas how he felt that soon people in Australia would be looking at photos of him and his wife as they drank cacao grown on their small farm, Andreas blushed deeply, and said it was almost too exciting to think about.
In that moment, both Alistair and I knew why we do what we do. We wish all of you could come with us to the places we source our cacao, to see how proud people are to sell their cacao to us, and how much good the money you spend with us is doing in the communities we buy from. Because ultimately the money we spend is yours - none of this could happen without you - and if our little business can make great things happen in the world, then that is thanks entirely to you.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for making this possible. A shipment of Flores Soma Cacao is already on its way to us, and should be available for purchase by August. We’ll be sure to share more about it then. We have so much to share (not least the story of Alistair’s love affair with a tiny macaque monkey Michael and Septania rescued from dogs on one of the farms they work with).
Until then,
With gratitude and nutmeg,
Rose, Alistair, and the team at Soma Cacao
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