There were a few things we wanted to do in Mindo, that we had heard were very interesting and fun activities.

After we went Zip lining through the forest canopy in Mindo, we decided to walk around the town and get to know the place a bit.

We ended up having a batido de fresa (strawberry smoothie) at an all organic cafe called El Quetzal. El Quetzal is actually a hostal as well.

What we didn’t know when we were sitting there was that El Quetzal is actually the place in Mindo known for it’s chocolate making tours as well. We discovered that El Quetzal was the place when three European girls walked in and asked about the chocolate tour.

We had wanted to do the chocolate tour, but I had actually forgotten all about it after the excitement of the canopy tour.

After eavesdropping on the beginning of the tour from our little table (sitting outside on the patio of El Quetzal), we decided to ask if we could join in.

They gladly accepted us into the tour, and the six of us went and toured the garden.

Mindo isn’t actually great for growing cacoa, but the owners are trying to grow some trees here anyway.

It is great for growing lots of other kinds of produce though (like much of Ecuador), and the owners actually grow a lot of what is used in their restaurant.

In general, most cocoa trees don´t bear fruit for 25 years, and their trees were planted just about three years ago, so it will be some time before they will know if cocoa trees grow well in Mindo.

However, cacao is grown elsewhere in Ecuador in large quantities, and most of it is exported.

In addition to learning about that, we learned about the process of chocolate making, from bean to final product.  It goes through quite a few stages:

• fermenting
• drying
• roasting
• crushing
• separating (to get cocoa nibs – cocoa is exported in this form)
• melting
• mixing (with sugar)
• pressing (to get cocoa powder separated from the cocoa butter)
• mixing (to add fat back in)
• melting
• tempering
• pouring
• cooling
• packaging

Making chocolate is a LOT of work.

What´s crazy is that the reason El Quetzal is in the chocolate business is because the owners wanted to sell brownies in Mindo, but ended up bringing chocolate with them to Ecuador from the United States every time they came to Ecuador.

As said, even though lots of cacao is grown in Ecuador, most of it is exported in raw form.  The owners thought it seemed silly to be bringing back the final product when the raw product was already here.

Thus began the Mindo chocolate business.

We learned a LOT about chocolate, and due to the sheer deliciousness, we had to return to El Quetzal the next day for a cup of hot chocolate (unsweetened so you could sweeten it to your taste) and pan de yucca (bread made from yucca), which tastes like marshmallows when dipped in hot chocolate.

Do the chocolate tour in Mindo at El Quetzal.  It costs $3.50, but at the end includes a homemade chocolate brownie and homemade chocolate ice cream.

It’s absolutely worth every penny.

And if you see Dan the chocolate man when you´re there, say hi from Jonathan and Carrie.  Dan gave us a GREAT tour!