OUR STORY

We are Paulo and Ariana. We met at the beginning of 2015, at a Fermentation Festival right here in San José, Costa Rica. Since then we have turned our kitchen into a laboratory, always fascinated by the chemistry of food, and the health benefits that brought us closer to the food through it's processing.

We are united by our passion for good food, always asking the question "where did this come from?" We've learned to move away from industrial processes, to see beauty in small batch production, and to support that wherever possible.

We asked the same question, "Where does this come from?", when we were looking at a mass-produced chocolate bar. That led us to see the source of the cocoa, which was deplorable working conditions in West Africa, using child labor and involving a host of human rights violations. We also were staring at the names of chemical ingredients that we couldn't even pronounce.

We asked ourselves, "What if we make our own chocolate, using cocoa from ethical sources? Costa Rica is a cocoa country! What if we could help elevate the status of Costa Rican cacao to the same level as its coffee? What if we can create quality products to add value to local agriculture? ” ...

So in 2021 we joined the Bean to Bar movement, and we began the search for the best cocoa beans, from ethical and sustainable sources, complex and amazing cacao that had the ability to teach us new things every day: the same feeling that many feel for their collection of wines.