Dear Somastars,
The days are getting warmer, and life is hotting up at Soma.
All five of our cacao origins are fully stocked - it feels like having all our children home for Christmas. Packages are zipping in, orders zipping out. Everything is bubbling along nicely.
This week we want to give the youngest cacao in our range some extra love (it has a little brother or sister origin on the way - but we won’t talk about that just yet).
We started stocking our
Peruvian cacao in October 2024. We had been researching Peruvian cacao for several years - when we started Soma, almost all cacao on the Australian market was Peruvian, sourced from one large wholesaler, and repackaged by a couple of small brands.
Cacao is native to Peru, where it has been domesticated for at least 3000 years. Like wine in France, the cacao scene is rich in Peru, with each region boasting its own unique variety, grown on a network of small farms. One of the best cacaos we’ve ever tasted grew wild in the Peruvian highlands, where it was harvested once a year by local people.
Unfortunately, though they produce excellent cacao, these small-scale operations don’t have the infrastructure to export a large quantity of high-quality cacao to us at Soma.
At the other end of the spectrum are the huge and notoriously corrupt Peruvian cacao conglomerates, whose business model seems to be growing cheap and homogenous cacao on other people’s land in the Amazon, which they sell to Nestlé. We have decided not to work with these conglomerates, both for ethical and quality reasons.
This was the dilemma we faced as we hunted for our
Peruvian cacao: finding a producer of unique native cacao with the means of shipping several tonnes each year to us on the other side of the world.
We finally found that balance in Kemito Ene, a cooperative of Asháninka farmers that grow cacao organically in the Ene basin of North Peru. The cooperative was founded by a young man who was tired of seeing Asháninka farmers ripped off when they sold their cacao to conglomerates.
The Asháninka are the second-most populous indigenous group in Peru. In their own language they call themselves “the people of the tree,” because of their close connection to nature. They are known for their colourful clothing and their work to preserve the Amazon.
Kemito Ene was awarded the 2019 Equator Prize by the United Nations Development Programme and currently works with the Rainforest Foundation UK, the CARE Foundation, and NESsT to educate farmers in sustainable and productive farming, provide them with community services and legal representation, and improve their processing capacities.
The cacao they send us has quickly become a fan favourite at Soma. Last month, for the first time ever, Peruvian was our most popular cacao origin. It has a dark, syrupy consistency, a nutty, slightly peppery flavour, and a very smooth mouthfeel.
It packs a punch, too - we recommend it for active mornings, big creative surges, and time roaming about in the great outdoors.
Many of you are already familiar with our
Peruvian cacao. For those who aren’t, maybe it’s worth adding a little sample to your next order. We do our darnedest to make sure everyone’s favourite is always on hand, but sometimes that’s just not possible, and then it’s good to have a back-up plan. And who knows? Maybe Peruvian will be a new favourite.
We hope you’re living large and taking chances,
