Have you ever wondered how chocolate is made? Stop by Lavaloha Cacao Farm, located just 10 minutes outside of downtown Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. There you can take a tour of the farm to see cacao pods growing up close and personal.
Tours last about 60 minutes and are offered several times a day, 6 days a week. There is a walking tour and riding tour option. We recommend the riding tour as the cacao farm is quite large. At 1000ft elevation, it can get pretty chilly, so be sure to bring some warm layers. There is also always a chance of wet weather, but they do provide umbrellas in case you forgot yours!
Your tour guide will teach you all about the history and why they choose certain cacao varieties over others. If you are lucky, you may even get to taste the flesh of the fruit and the fresh seeds that will eventually become chocolate! The fruit itself tastes nothing like the chocolate end-product. It has a soft, mushy texture like a cherimoya or custard apple, but the flavor is similar to a lychee.
Vertically Integrated Cacao Farm
The coolest thing about this cacao farm is that they not only grow the cacao, but they also process and craft their very own small batch chocolates! Your tour guide will take you through the area where they start the fermentation process in huge tubs. After that, you’ll get to take a peek inside the drying room. As soon as they open the doors to the drying room, there is this intense warmth like opening the oven door. And then the aroma of chocolate engulfs your entire body. In this room, each seed is hand picked and sifted for any imperfections, so that only the best seeds make it to the final product.
Chocolate Tasting
After the drying room, you’ll be taken to the chocolate tasting area. You will learn how they take the fermented roasted seeds, grind it up and temper it to create beautifully smooth and rich chocolate. This is followed by a delightful chocolate tasting of the different bars that they produce. After the tasting, the tour will end back at the gift shop, where you can pick up some of your favorite chocolates from the tasting. They also stock other products like hot sauces, soaps and lotions made from cacao!
Before You Go
Before you leave, take a stroll down into the collapsed lava tube, which is located just across from the gift shop. You may end up with three little stalkers on your way down to the tube. They seem to be quite fond of visitors, and it's no wonder why. There is a little vending machine that you can grab some food to feed them. And most visitors will run back to the gift shop just to get change to oblige these hungry ducks.
Book a cacao farm tour online at their website: https://lavaloha.com/
Tips for visiting the farm: https://lavaloha.com/visit
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This looks like a great experience for people of all ages. Thanks for sharing with us all!
What a divine day trip. It’s great that you got to taste the product at the end. Thanks for sharing.
Wow! Thank you for sharing this. I saw the cacao pods for the first time. I had no idea how they looked like.
I definitely wish I did this chocolate tour when I visited Hilo in September. Looks fun!
Headed to the Big Island next month. Thank you so much for sharing this. Looks like a great activity.
We love chocolate and any sort of farm / food tour is what we look for when travelling, thanks for this…
Aww I that looks so cool, I want to go back to the big island so badly. I also never knew cacao was from an edible fruit.