Cacao Boliviano with Volker Lehmann | #PodSaveChocolate
Episode 20 of #PodSaveChocolate features an update to my discussions of Bolivian cacao in a new interview with friend and colleague Volker Lehmann.
When and Where to Watch
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Link to watch and comment from my LinkedIn profile.
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Episode 20 Overview
This episode of #PodSaveChocolate features an interview with Volker Lehmann, a German-born and trained tropical agronomist who’s been working in Bolivia for over two decades. Volker is best known in the cocoa and chocolate communities as the person who first introduced the wild cacao of the Bolivian Beni, harvested on his chocolatale, the Hacienda Tranquilidad, into the market in 2006 by convincing Felchlin to take on his beans – a non-trivial task.
Since then, Volker has been a champion of Bolivian cacao grown throughout Bolivia, not just in the area of the Beni department that surrounds the Hacienda Tranquilidad, but also in Alto Beni, where farmed cacao, mainly organic, has been produced since the 1970s. There he owns a harvest center “Flor de Cacao” in the town of Palos Blancos, where Heirloom Cacao Preservation (HCP) #1 was produced in 2013.
The very first HCP designee
We will be discussing Volker’s current and future activities of cocoa in Bolivia, climate change issues, and his voluntary carbon credit initiative.
Photo Galleries plus Maps from my visits to Bolivia in 2010
The image on the left was a part of the presentation by the Peruvian delegation to the Second International Congress on Cacao Fino in the Andean Region. These are international guests at a Salon del Cacao y Chocolate in Lima. Can you pick out: Colin Gasko, Alan McClure, Art Pollard, Phillippe Bernachon, Maricel Presilla, Stéphane Bonnat, Martin Christy, and Jean-Paul Hevin. The image on the right is a sign outside of the Chocolate Condor factory in La Paz that Volker and I visited as we headed out of La Paz into the South Yungas on our way to Palos Blancos and Rurrenebaque.
Driving from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba to La Paz to Palos Blancos to Rurre
Palos Blancos, Alto Beni
Rurre
Resources
All HCP designees
Background and Resources
TheChocolateWire
Episode 110 of TheChocolateLifeLIVE
All Bolivian cacao bars at Caputo’s.
A collab between Caputos and Ritual using Tranquilidad cacao.
Matt Caputo talking about the above collab bar.
Episode Hashtags
#WildCacao #CacaoSilvestre
#Bolivia #CacaoBoliviano #CacaoBeniano #AltoBeni
#HaciendaTranquilidad #VolkerLehmann
#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat
#PodSaveChocolate #PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife
#TheChocolateLifeLIVE Archive
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Clay Gordon