Dave...cloves at Keaau Health Foods sells for a fortune...you should dry yours and sell it there!!!! A year ago I met two ladies who were sick of spending a fortune for their Thanksgiving hams' cloves!!!
Still yet, Tropical Herbs & Spice!
Hmmmm, I can envision another crop for Carol and Bob's venture. For some reason I am not fond of the scent of dried cloves but I imagine the fresh is awesome.
Metrosideros: I see that you are very busy gardening and doing field trips with Kea and Ku. From my nine dogs, two have Hawaian names: Koa, he is a German Shepperd mix and Lanai, also a mixed variety.
Here in Costa Rica cacao trees are always planted below taller trees for shade. Ah, about Ingas, The tree is very popular in Costa Rica. Since it belongs to the Leguminosae Family, it bears long pods, the seeds as you mentioned are covered with a white thin cover very sweet. So you just put the seed inside your mouth and with your teeth remove that sweet cover and the seed has to be discarded. Here Ingas are called guabas. So sometimes people that come from other countries believe that we are talking about Guayaba. There are 53 species of Inga in Costa Rica , 12 are endemics of this country.,
Hey Bignonia, do all of the Inga species contain a sweet pulp?
The cloves have a sweet scent when they are fresh; they get spicier / sharper scented as they dry.
I might have a hard time selling the cloves, as I love the scent so much! My mother will be the first recipient of some of them. Some will be used for baking, and some will be made into a Chai-like tea!
Dave...I went to harvest my cloves, but found that all of the 'clumps of flowers' were in different stages of development...and even within the bunch of flowers they were immature and mature. Are they ready to harvest when the bottom of the bud has more pink in it. How do you dry yours in this humidity. I am having a ball!
Metrosideros, The mayority of Ingas have sweet pulp but some species have seeds with a very thin cover that makes them not edible.
Carol, if the Cloves are in flower it's past the stage for spice. The Cloves must be picked before the flower opens. Any Cloves that are flowering will hopefully make seeds!
I better get out and pick more buds off my trees.
I mispoke. The buds have NOT opened...they are in bud stage.
I let the buds get as large as possible before picking. They develop slowly and at different rates. I remove the buds once a week; they seem to take forever for that little bud to swell up!
Metrosideros,
You truly need a full time security guard there.....ummmm have i mentioned that umm I'm looking for a job?
Really, I am so happy for you! That is a dream for me and I get to see it through your eyes...thank you and happy growing! :)
Here is Kea and Ku. The security team!
I would like to apply for the job of chocolate taster - just to make sure you get the blend right......you really can't entrust Kea and Ku with that job ^_^
First of all, the roasted cacao beans must have their papery covering removed. Then they are cracked and finely ground. Next some Sucanat (or honey) is added and the ingredients are blended and slowly heated and worked (with a spoon) till they are smooth and even. Flavors including Vanilla extract (mine is made with dark rum; in the Mezzetta jar at the top of the photo) are then added, and the mass is thoroughly mixed again. This is then formed into a bar or bite sized pieces. and cooled down.
The result is a crude, flavorful (strong and dark), yet very healthy, chocolate!
Here is the chocolate mid-process.
This is the finished product!
Wonderful pictures showing the steps, thanks! I love that knife with it's sheath too - is it silver? Is it an old piece?
The finished chocolate looks so rich and yummy, but I bet you can't eat much at one sitting!
Cacao was used by the Maya civilization as money. I found this info in internet:: "Chocolate was made from roasted cocoa beans, water and a little spice: and it was the most important use of cocoa beans, although they were also valued as a currency. An early explorer visiting Guatemala found that": for example 100 cacao beans could buy a rabbit.. "Cacao beans were worth transporting for long distances because they were luxury items. In Maya times, one of the privilege of the elite (the royal house, nobles, shamans, artist, merchants, and warriors) was to drink chocolate. although it was not used as currency like in the Postclassic, it surely was a good trade foodstuff". Here in Costa Rica our tribes used cacao as money in the northern part of the country or for exchanging products.
Aloha, everyone.
That does it! My day is officially going nowhere after reading this chocolate-making process. I'll dream of that and nothing will get done today, that's for sure. Tomorrow is still a maybe.
Being a very dark chocolate addict, I was practically drooling over myself while I read. Thank you for sharing this with us and illustrating the process with those great pictures. I also loved the security team.
Mahalo & Aloha.,
Pu'ole, a.k.a. Sylvain.
I make the chocolate to be about 75% cacao. Being diabetic (type 1) I can't eat things with lots of sugar, and the sugar needs to be unrefined. I don't even like most of the stuff sold in stores anymore, as there is little flavor in it.
The knife is a gaucho knife from Brazil, depicting Yerba Mate, the handle and sheath are silver.
Hey Dave....great information, thanks! There is that new Asian Food store, across from the Chevy Dealership on Kiluea...next to Helco.... They sell raw Palm Sugar... Great flavor!! There are two kinds...I like the darker one the best!!!
Yes...the knife is beautiful!!!
Thanks for the tip Carol! I need that Palm Sugar (Jaggary). It is necessary in making Indian curries. I bet it would be great in chocolate!
Carol & Dave, we were told the present sugar crop on Kauai is the last sugar to be raised over there. Do they still grow sugar on the BI? If not, it seems like there might be a market for something like palm sugar. Refined sugar will be outrageously expensive if it has to be imported. Actually that is the same reason it will no longer be grown on Kauai, the export costs were too high.
What kind of palms are used for sugar?
Alexander & Baldwin Co. are growing sugarcane successfully on a small scale on Maui. They use it to make raw sugar (turbinado) which they sell in 2 pound containers with a bunch of aloha jargon on it, which is sold as a tourist item. It is much more expensive than the bagged brands or getting it at a heath food store in bulk.
The Date Palm, Phoenix dactylifera is the principle plant from which Palm Sugar is gotten. Two other major sources are the Khajuri Palm, Phoenix sylvestris and The Sugar Palm, Arenga pinnata.
Hmmmm, both P. dactylifera and sylvestris do well here (as does sugar cane.) Every fall we get cane from the farmers so the grandkids can chew on it. Now I'll have to figure out how to find the sweet spots in the palms.
In Phoenix dactylifera, the Dates are cooked down for sugar. In Phoenix sylvestris, the flower stalks are tapped for sap, which is cooked down into sugar.
Interesting, seedlings are such a problem here, usually if I can reach the flower stalks, I cut them off.
Dave, do you ferment the beans before roasting? There are a couple of Belgians here in Merida that are making truly exquisite chocolate. Here's their web site http://www.ki-xocolatl.com/eng/
I toured their small factory, everything is done by the two of them and two other employees. They told us that they need to control the whole process from harvest on so that they can get the quality of chocolate they need. The beans are fermented for a set time, I wish I could remember but I believe it is around a week. Then they roast them and grind them many times. One of my favorite bars that they make is dark chocolate with chili and cardomom.
According to them, the fermentation is one of the most important steps in making fine chocolate.
The cacao beans must be fermented to get their classic flavor and aroma!
Is anyone else CRAVING chocolate???????
I am!
Oh, I'm telling you: one day I'll go to Hawaii, just to eat Dave's chocolate, and visit his gardens! And Carol's! And Jenny's!
Clove trees are blooming!
Hopefully they will make seeds.
The flowers do smell like cloves!
I am getting blooms too...but with all our rain the bees haven't been as 'active'.... Let's hope we get a bit of dry.
How beautiful! And how blessed you are to be able to grow such rare things outside in your gardens! I wish I could smell thru the computer screen... sniff, sniff.
Wasn't someone discussing "Smell O Vision" lately on TZG?
Wonder if they have that worked out yet!