Fantastic news, Somacrew!

After a year of searching, scouring high and low across the globe, we have finally landed our next cacao source!

It's been a long and awful process, that started with us cold-calling dozens of cacao farms, requesting blind tastings, getting rejected, sending shirtless photos, getting insulted, having samples delivered to the wrong address (once the wrong country), duelling with customs, sending shirtless photos to customs, getting insulted, tasting samples, turning most down, liking a few, asking for prices, receiving shirtless photos, getting confused, building bean-to-paste yield models, talking to chocolatiers, calculating exchange rates, mapping shipping routes, working out organic certifications, yelling at stupid DHL, arranging video calls, being stood up, giving up, getting up, starting over.

As with all things, after months of hard work, producing nothing, the solution just dropped in our lap.

Mr Right contacted us, we arranged a sample, it came to the right address, we loved it, we researched the farm, we loved its story, they sent us all their information neatly presented in English, the price was fair, they arranged the first part of the shipping themselves - everything fell into place.

This is a big decision for us, which is why we’ve taken it slowly. We’ve built Soma on the promise of excellent cacao. All our marketing, our excellent packaging, long emails, Mini Mixers and superfoods - all mean nothing if Soma cacao is not the best cacao around.

We think our new cacao is one of the best we’ve ever tasted, and it’s different to the others we sell. We think they’ll get along well.

It’s also important that we find the right people to work with. We’re determined to focus on high-quality single-origin cacaos, which means that as Soma grows, we’re going to outgrow the farms we work with. We’re going to have to add new farms, because we don’t have the luxury of buying cheap bulk homogenous cacao.

Our new cacao comes from a small group of old farms, processed by a family business. There’s been a generation change in the family business - the younger generation is enthusiastic to streamline and grow. We’re excited to work with them, and see where the relationship takes us both.

We should have everything ready soon, and have our new cacao on sale in the next eight weeks.

In the meantime, inspired by our constant losses to Alistair’s brother (Soma Customer #17) in Geoguessr, we’re launching a competition to see who can guess our next origin from photos of the surrounding area.

All the following photos come from within 100km of the farms we’ll be sourcing our cacao from. Please email your best guess of where that is to hello@somacacao.com.au, making it as specific as possible (ie “The Bronx, New York, USA” is better than “New York, USA” or just “America.”)

The person whose guess is closest to our source will receive the first 500g bag we pack!

Happy guessing, Somaguessers.

With excitement and a little relief,

Rose, Alistair, and the team at Soma Cacao.