WEBVTT - The Hunt 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.840 I'm in the co pilot seat of this small Cessna 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:25.680 plane and we're circling the Bolivian Amazon. Beside me, pilot 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.440 sweating because we're looking for a place to land and 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:33.680 we can't find one. The weather was bad and and 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.800 the pilot was nervous, and it was it was quite exciting. 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.320 Behind me. Is this guy just been a day ago? 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.960 This German accou hunter named Volker Lahman. Bolker looks a 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:47.240 bit like the German director Werner Herzog. Sounds like him too. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:52.080 The more dangerous or tricky the situation dance of the 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.240 kalmar Get. It's two thousand ten, and Folker's letting me 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.880 tag along. If you searches for a holy grail while 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.120 cocao tree that gives us chocolate. Coco's native to the Amazon, 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:06.560 and now it's farmed all over the tropics, mostly in Africa. 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:09.520 A few years before our trip, Focus stumbled upon an 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.520 incredible variety of wild cow in Bolivia and he turned 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.200 it into this mind blowing chocolate. So now there's a 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.120 gold rush for these magic beans, and Volker's hope is 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:22.240 to stay one step ahead. There's an indigenous group in 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.520 the forest of the Europare. Rumor has it they have 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.600 a ton of wildcata cell So the plan is fly in, 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.039 find a landing strip, take a dugout canoe to the 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:42.920 Eurokari village, strike a deal below us. The jungle looks otherworldly. 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.040 The whole thing is steaming, miss rising to form these 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:51.720 immense thunderheads, and the thunderheads are dropping ropes black rain 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.320 back to the forest. At one point we punched through 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:57.720 a storm and water comes spitting through the vents of 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.840 the plain. Shoot a glance at the pilot, like what, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.040 but he just waves me off. It's getting hard to 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.400 tell what to worry about and what not to worry about. 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:10.800 For that, all I can do is counting vulgar because 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.560 he's been navigating the Amazon for twenty years. This part 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.080 of Olivia is all rainforests and grasslands. It's also a 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.680 major cocaine flyaway. The rivers are dotted with these homemade 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.120 landing strips and small planes swoop in, pick up the drugs, 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.840 and head for Brazil. Those landing strips are super convenient 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.680 if you need to get into the deepoots quickly, which 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.400 we do, but it's also super dangerous. Hundreds of people 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.320 get shot in the Amazon every year for all sorts 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.120 of reasons. Just being an environmental activist is enough, But 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.640 stumbling upon a cocaine lab that's one of the surest 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:53.720 ways to make it happen. But when you need a 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.440 landing strip, you need a landing strip. The problem is 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.239 that it's the rainy season and everything is fly it. 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.919 The rivers have risen like thirty feet, The trees are 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.560 in standing water, the ground is gleaming like a mirror. 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.079 At last, there's a strip near a small cabin on 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:17.680 the river, but it's really short. The rain swamped part 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.080 of the landing strip, and the landing strip was homemade. No, 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.720 it's not official landing strip. The pilot swoops down to 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.000 get a closer look, and he doesn't like what he sees, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.200 and neither do I. He pulls back up and circles 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.720 the area looking for alternatives, but there are no alternatives. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.840 The pilot keeps circling back to that original strip. He's 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.000 trying to psych himself up, and for all I know, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:46.760 we're running well on fuel. Get vulcars still sitting there 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.160 like it's another day in the park. And that is 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.840 making me more nervous because I can tell that his 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.560 appetite for risk is a lot higher than mine. And 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:00.400 then the pilot banks the plane towards that strip. For second, 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.960 I think, well, this must be another reconnaissance run, because 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.840 nobody would. Oh no, he's going for it right now. 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.800 The ground is rising in front of us fast. So 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.120 I grabbed the handle above the door, tucked my head 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:18.600 and brace and we hit actually hits the wrong word. 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.240 It's super soft thanks to all that spongey ground. So 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.520 we break hard and slammed the stop spraying puddles, and 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:37.760 I'm like, holy sh it, we made it. So I 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.479 grabbed my back and hop out. Vulkers behind me and 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.880 it's like, hello Amazon. It's a cathedral. When you're on 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.320 the ground, there's these massive trees that are dripping thick fines. 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.880 There's flocks of actual parrots screeching through the canopy. And 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.160 then from that little cabin up ahead, four guys emerge 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.280 and they're holding rifles. There were like one guy coming, 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.920 and then the second, and the third and the fourth, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.000 and then they were surrounding us. And I was looking 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.920 at the pilot and he said, I have to leave 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.640 because of the weather, and you know, nobody said anything, 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.120 and so he turned around this plane and off he 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:22.000 off he went, and then I realized, oh, we are 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.920 in the middle of some people we don't know. I 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.520 was nervous. I am trying not to make any fast 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.560 moves because these guys are twitchy. Everything they say confirmed 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.440 my worst fears. They're watching the place for their boss, 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.040 who's a Columbian man, and we've just landed on his 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:43.560 private runway without permission. And I've been in the Amazon 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.000 for all five minutes, and I'm starting to wonder if 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.480 maybe I'm not really cut out of this cacao anything. 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.720 And all I can do is look over vulgar and think, 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:59.599 I hope the hell you got this from Kaleidostoe and 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:04.839 I podcasts. This is Obsessions Wild Chocolate. I'm Rowan Jacobson, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:35.400 Chapter one, The Hunt. So one thing I should explain 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.800 is that I'm a food writer, but not a normal 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.880 food writer. I don't write cookbooks or restaurant reviews. Instead, 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.720 the thing I do is harder to explain. This is 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.400 All Things Considered from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. Listen 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.600 to how Rowan Jacobson describes a temperamental mollusk. I kind 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.400 of think of these as the Sean pen of oysters 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.120 like very intense and memorable, but you wouldn't want have 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.160 him every day. Rowan Jacobson talks about oysters the way 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.400 a lover might recall his favorite conquests. You have to 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:11.640 think about the after globe. See what I mean. My 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.800 call is to bring amazing ingredients to life, to use 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.440 intense sensory experience as a wormhole to jump into a 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:25.520 universe of exotic landscapes, diverse traditions, revelations, and obsessions. Back 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.280 in two thousand nine, I was writing a book about 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.200 the world's best ingredients, and I was working on chapter 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:34.880 about chocolate. Chocolate, of course, is on anybody's shortlist of 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:39.240 great ingredients, as it should be. It's our most complex food. 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.760 It has more than six hundred different flavor components. If 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.320 you think of flavor as a kind of language away 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.480 the world communicates to us through our senses, then chocolate 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:53.720 is like epic poetry. It speaks in these lush, rhythmic 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.800 phrases that sweep over us and sometimes sweep us away 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.800 at good chocolate does. But the stuff you find in 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.680 your typical candy aisle that's more brain fart than epic poem. 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.080 There's just not that much chocolate in your average chocolate bar, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.040 and the quality is nothing special. Just like great wine 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:17.040 requires great grapes, epic chocolate requires the very best cacalbeans, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.840 and those are really hard to find. For decades, nobody 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.800 outside the Amazon was really looking for them. Now that's change. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.320 A new wave of extreme chocolate makers is seeking out 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.720 the best of the best and using it to make 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.520 the most intensely delicious chocolate that has ever been made, 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.360 chocolate that is so different from what has come before 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.600 that the experience is like some sort of drug. In 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.280 two thousand nine, I was tasting my way through these 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.000 trippy bars from my book, and it kept coming across 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.400 rumors about the trippiest of them all. Supposedly it was 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.560 the first bar in history that wasn't made out of 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.480 farm to cacab This one was all wild, sourced from 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.520 the Amazon rainforest itself, and it tasted like nothing that 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:03.080 had come before. Well. Summoning all of my journalistic skills, 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.240 I managed to track down a bar. I had to 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.600 order it from Switzerland and it cost me twenty six 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.800 bucks was shipping, but a week later the FedEx truck 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.120 dropped the hot little box on my porch and I 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.480 tore it open. The bars cloaked in snazzy Swiss wrapping, 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.720 slid off the sleeve and part of the gold foil 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.840 to reveal a thin plank of chocolate embossed with a feather. 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.080 I snapped off a shard, placed it on my tongue, 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:35.400 and the bottom fell out of the room. It melted 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:39.800 like silk, not a trace of bitterness. There's these notes 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.160 of dried fruit and pipe smoke dancing through my sinuses. 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.599 It was like finding an old chest in your grandparents 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:52.240 attic and sticking your nose inside and breathing in the centuries. 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.959 It was delicious, for sure, but that was almost beside 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:01.760 the point for something else going on, something metaphysical. I 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:03.840 don't really have the word for it. All I can 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.959 say is, compared to all the chocolate I've known, this 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.480 one tasted real. I wanted more of this wild chocolate, 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.760 this wild experience, and I resolved to find someone who 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:23.720 could lead me into this thicket of flavors. What I 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.480 couldn't have known at the time was that seeking the 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:28.920 answers to those questions was going to lead me into 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.400 the rainforest again and again in the shadowed laws, civilizations, 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.600 and in the company of some extraordinary people obsessed with 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.520 making god level chocolate. It was frequently going to leave 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.760 me soaked, bitten, miserable, and miles from the nearest bed. 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.000 It was going to expose me to chocolate's dark history 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.760 of exploitation and environmental destruction. But it was also going 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.600 to show me cocow's sacred side and how can we 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.520 used to protect the rainforest. But on that day in 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.640 two thousand nine, I just wanted to know if the 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.800 story was true, if this mythical wild cacao really existed. 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.160 The chocolate maker said it was being supplied from Bolivia 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.480 by a man named Vulgar Layman. And that's how I 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:19.400 met the Herzog of coco hunting over Skype. Hello. Hey. 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:21.400 When I told him that people I asked had never 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.440 heard of wild cacao, he just laughed. He said, most 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.920 people in the business have never even seen a cocountry, 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:31.000 much less step foot in the rainforest. Basically, they were idiots, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.440 not close to being on his level. I go at 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:38.280 ahead of the pank. Everybody behind me, No, still trying 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:48.359 to catch me. Somehow not possible. I like the intensity 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.000 he seemed to have swagger. He said, he was taking 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.400 a trip into your car a territory in search of 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.520 new sources. So why not come and see for myself 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.440 what type of details you want me tool send you? 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.560 Maybe the plant, the logistics. Yeah, I just want just yeah, 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.839 where you want me and when? Basically, um, and then 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.640 I'll run it by the podcast people who are interested. 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.880 They give you money, yeah, hopefully they I'll make sure 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.800 that they can cover my my flights and so on. Yeah, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.679 and then little money and for the steaks and beers 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:30.880 and oh yeah, okay, yeah, I pictured that's paddling up 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.560 a river, joining in wild chocolate ceremonies, rivers of molten 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.760 deliciousness pouring down our chins. That was the plan anyway, 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:50.680 Are there snakes to worry about? They are? Okay. That 0:12:50.880 --> 0:13:03.440 was age very large crocodile, which brings me back to 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.719 that landing strip. We're staring at these twittery guys with guns, 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.840 and I know what they're thinking. For two white dudes 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.840 to drop out of an airplane in this region means 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.000 one of two things. Either they think we're undercovered DA 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.360 or they think we're traffickers, and either way is not good. 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.720 It seems like that it was close to the weekend 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.400 and they needed some money to buy food and booze. 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.800 So I said myself, okay, they have a need to 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.840 give money, and we have the need to get out 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.880 of it. So he says, no problem with guys, what's 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.520 the landing feed and the guys just look at each other, 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.440 and finally one says five thousand bolivianos, which is about 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.920 seven fifty bucks. And I'm thinking, oh my god, that's 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.880 a pretty good deal. We've definitely got enough to swing that. 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:57.160 And before I can get there, Bulker says, stone faced, sorry, 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.160 we don't have that much. I said, look, I am myself. 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.360 I'm poor. And he started looking at me and like, well, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:09.160 what what a story, you know? And they said, okay, 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.520 you know, look, I represent a small project and and 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:19.760 we're doing with Cacao. We're dealing with the indigenous Jura 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:24.000 care people. I'm listening to Votres explanation and I can't 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:28.440 tell how persuaded these guys are. Just then Vulgar pulls 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.160 out five hundred bilianos, which is only seventy five bucks, 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:37.640 and offers it up. I take a deep breath and watch, 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.200 and the guy relaxes and takes the money, and then 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.600 his buddies relax and suddenly the whole five changes and 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.680 they invite us to sit down and have a drink. 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.560 So we're making small talk. He actually want a tool, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.680 give me as a gift a book. It was a 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.840 beat up John Grisham paperback someone had left behind. It 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.200 was in English. So they us part and I said, no, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.560 keep it. You know, we want to travel light until 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.480 use the money and think of her much and see 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.800 you there you go how to win friends and influence 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.920 people in the Amazon. After paying off our new friends, 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:17.440 Bolker and I make our way down to the river. 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.720 Two guys are waiting for us in a long, skinny 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.200 dugout with an outboard on the back. Aurelio has a 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.040 white gambler hat, a mustache, a cigarette, and a rifle. 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.000 Talked into the bow of the canoe full cowboy vibe. 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.560 In the back of the boat, the pilot Dante, a 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.360 big guy with the scruppy beard, a huge wad of 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.480 coca leaves stuffed into his bulgian cheek. We threw our 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:44.680 stuff into the middle of the canoe and wedge ourselves 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.600 in between, trying not to capsize the thing. All right, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.880 here goes nothing. Any last words before we launched the voyage, 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:56.840 I don't never have last words. This is not the 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:12.200 end at all. I want to taste of some of 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.760 this god level chocolate. We got you covered. Kaliscope has 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.600 joined forces with Louise Abram and Stetler Chocolate to make 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.200 a special box to go along with its very podcast 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.520 taste what has driven many to near madness at www 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:40.280 dot Stetler dash Chocolate dot com. Chocolate is a Mayan 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:44.120 thing a thousand years before Europeans crossed the Atlantic, the 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.480 Maya we're already growing cacao all over Central America and 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.920 using it for rituals and ceremonies. Maya people are the 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:56.840 forced people. Known people used it, concurvated, domesticated it and 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.080 for us. But it's a gift from the heavens above. 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:03.960 That's Julio's the key. He's a man and elder. I 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.960 met and belieze. Julia has a chocolate company, but he 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.600 also does demonstrations of traditional Mayan chocolate making. There's a 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:12.879 way of teaching others what cacow means to his people. 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.320 We stood in his dashed hut just off the highway 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.880 while trucks rattled by as he toasted cacow beans over 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.960 a wooden fire, then ground them between two stones to 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.760 form a paste. Then he mixed the paste with hot 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.000 water and whipped the drink into a froth. This is 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.600 how his mother did it before him, and her mother 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.119 before her, sharing the drink and burning the beans on 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.639 an altar is believed. This is our belief that the 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.359 prayers that we're seeing, the tanks that we're saying, to 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.480 the jungle, to the rainforest, to the wind, to the breeze, 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.280 to the mountains, to the soil, our ancestors would feel 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.480 it would take it. And this is what we strongly 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.119 believe the connection is with between the upper world on 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.439 the the lower world where we are to it. So 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:01.720 for usc is essentially it's food. He's like talking about 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:06.200 food being a religious experience, but traditionally the creation and 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:10.800 consumption of chocolate is just that. Needless to say, that 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.960 was lost on the first European to encounter cacao, a 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:25.240 guy named Christopher Columbus. It was August and Columbus was 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.800 on his fourth and final voyage to the New World. 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.320 He'd blown it on the whole passage to India. Thing 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.520 he hadn't found any big stores of gold, his ships 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.040 were in tatters, and after his last voyage he'd been 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.520 carted back to Spain and shackles. He needed a big score, 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.120 and miraculously, off the coast of Honduras he got it. 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:50.040 A huge mind trading canoe more than a hundred feet long, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:55.000 laden with cloth axes, war clubs, corn beer, and what 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.560 looked like almonds. Columbus hauled them eye on their cargo 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:00.760 on board, and when some of those alm and spilled, 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.320 the mind merchants freaked. Glumbus's son wrote that they scrambled 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.280 for them as if their eyeballs had fallen out. Obviously, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.800 to the Maya, these weird almonds were precious. If you're 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.760 a master explorer desperate defined treasure, wouldn't you go ashore 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:19.960 and see if there's any more of these things lying around? 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.280 If Colemus had, he'd have learned that the eyeballs rolling 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.960 around his deck were cacao beans, and they were the 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.520 lifeblood of Mayan culture. Everybody had a few trees in 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.480 their backyard, some people had whole forests. No wedding or 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.600 holiday was complete without a round of hot chocolate whipped 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.320 into a froth with a nice head of phone. The 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.280 dried beans could last for years, so they were the 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.480 coin of the realm. According to records from the fift hundreds, 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.240 one coco bean to get you it to molly, three 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:53.040 an avocado for a salamander, and eight a rabbit or 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:57.920 a prostitute. Cocaw is still used as currency in some places. 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:00.480 Julio Saki says that when he was growing up and 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:05.520 believe in the nineteen seventies, cacao was cash. My mom 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.679 mused to send me as she heard that somebody just 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.600 got a fresh neat coming in from the jungle. She 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:17.320 would send me over to treat to buy that meat, 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.439 essentially with that half kilo of coca beats, and the 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.440 owner never refuses it. They would say, oh wow, yes, yes, yes, 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.080 here's here's your meat. The point is cocao was the 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.840 sacred heart of Mine society and Aztec society. The Aztec 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.520 emperor Montezuma was known to drink fifty cups of chocolate 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.240 over the course of a single meal. When Spanish conquistadors 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:44.359 rated his treasure vaults, they found nine hundred and sixty 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.840 million cacal beans sitting inside. It was the Fort Knox 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.479 of the New World, and Spanish quickly claimed it as 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.119 their own. Soon they'd taken over the whole cocao operation. 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:56.920 But they never learned to love chocolate until they began 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.960 pouring sugar into it. Then they introduced it to Europe 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.119 and the craze began. Chocolate houses sprang up from England 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.360 to Austria. They were basically the Starbucks of their day, 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.800 and Spanish controlled the entire trade. For all the talk 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:15.760 of Elderado, the real treasure they found was chocolate. For 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:17.880 a while, all the cocoa in the New World came 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:22.560 from traditional varieties that had great flavor, But as demand exploded, 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:26.440 supplies got tight. The old orchards just couldn't keep up. 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.160 So the chocolate industry planted cacou all over the tropics, 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:35.720 especially in West Africa, where labor was unfortunately cheapest of all, 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:40.359 and the industry planted whatever hybrid varieties produced the highest yields, 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.640 no matter how they tasted, because back then nobody paid 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.359 extra for flavor. A bean was a bean. There's a 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:52.000 saying in West Africa, Mark Christian, one of the world's 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:56.680 leading chocolate critics, there's no cemetery for cocoa beans, which 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.080 means it doesn't matter every single one of them. We 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.479 sell them because no matter how good are bad they are, 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.840 Nestlee's or whoever, you know, he's gonna get their hands 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:12.040 on them. And then they'll standardize the flavor by smearing 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.880 it with big vanilla. Maybe it'll go into milk chocolate 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:17.960 or whatnot. You know, there are lots of ways to 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:23.440 mask it, and they're fine with it because it's about volume, volume, 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:29.119 but not taste. And that's still true. But now a 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:32.960 few Indiana Jones style cocao hunters like Vulgar are trying 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.800 something new. They're raising money for expeditions and scouring the 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:40.359 jungles for cacao with real flavor, flavors that have been 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:45.320 lost for centuries, or in some cases, new flavors no 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:50.399 one has ever tasted before. The funny thing is this 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:53.399 new way of thinking about chocolate. It's really just the 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.520 old way of thinking about chocolate. It always was the 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:01.159 gold of the forest. We finally got to this city 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:06.920 called Boca, which is mouth of Acre, the Acre River, 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:13.080 and it was dry season. It was August. That's Louisa Abram, 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.560 the new rock star of wild Chocolate at twenty two, 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:19.960 fresh out of culinary school, she launched her chocolate company 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:23.320 and began looking around for source of fantastic cacaw. She 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:25.560 heard a rumor that a tiny co op deep in 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:28.720 the Amazon had a stash to sell, so she charted 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:32.160 a skinny boat and made the trip. The river was 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:37.280 so dangerous, Oh my gosh, like I've never saw so 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:42.800 many trunks and so many like obstacles. Rivers in Amazonia 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.040 are filled with buried tree trunks just waiting to impale 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.720 your boat. It can be treacherous. But they made it 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:51.960 through the big river and then they turned down a 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:55.280 tiny stream just wide enough for the boat, and they 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.879 followed it wherever. It was six hours in the little 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:09.000 like stream. Suddenly you see like this big ass bridge. 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:15.119 Humanous if you would, and you're like, something's here. It 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:17.280 was a town of eight people in the middle of 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:22.280 the jungle. It was called Mapia, which means heaven, and 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:25.080 it was a very particular sort of heaven. We had 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:28.639 no idea when we got there. They build the co 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:34.920 op to sustain the Santo Daimi Community Center. DAM is 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:38.080 a religion based in part on ayahuasca, a drink brewed 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:42.880 from psychedelic plants that triggers visions and euphoria. It's part Catholicism, 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:46.960 part paganism. It's practitioners drink ayahuasca in group rituals that 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.520 involve chanting and dancing that goes on all night long. 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.800 They believe the ayahuasca, or dim as they call it, 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:59.000 brings the spirit of the divine into them. The farest 0:24:59.040 --> 0:25:02.119 around Mapia were filled countries, and the beans were one 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:04.800 of the community's main sources of income. It was a 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:07.199 perfect way to make a little money while leaving the forest. Intact, 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:11.359 Louis loved the idea of working with wild cacao and 0:25:11.440 --> 0:25:12.960 using it as a way to support the dame A 0:25:13.080 --> 0:25:16.600 community and to protect their sacred forest. She began making 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:19.879 regular visits to the community, slowly learning their ways and 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:23.000 winning their trust, but she knew that to really be 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:26.840 in sync with them, she needed to experience the ayahuasca. 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:32.280 I think for them, it was important that I could 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:39.480 see them outside of being a labor force. I could 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:44.040 see them as people. I knew that I was going 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:48.720 to keep on going there, so I said to one 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:52.639 of the leaders in the community, can I be a 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:59.760 part of the ceremony tonight. He was so surprised that 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:08.080 he invited the whole community, eighty people. And I was afraid, 0:26:08.200 --> 0:26:10.479 I'm not gonna lie. I was a little bit afraid, 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:13.719 like if I take this, it's gonna mess up my 0:26:13.800 --> 0:26:18.879 mind for my whole entire life. That night, the people 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:22.520 gathered in the church with guitars and drums. The church 0:26:22.680 --> 0:26:26.360 is not a church that like we know, with like 0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:30.920 four walls, nothing like that. It's open, so you can 0:26:31.840 --> 0:26:36.600 here the environment. As the night sounds of the forest 0:26:36.640 --> 0:26:39.879 filtered into the church. Everyone lined up to receive communions. 0:26:40.119 --> 0:26:45.359 It's a thick drink, almost like a smoothie, and you 0:26:45.840 --> 0:26:50.200 take it like a shot, and it tastes earthy, bitter. 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:58.000 At first, you don't feel nothing, and then it started. 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:07.440 I started really feeling different, feeling lighter, feeling happier, feeling 0:27:08.119 --> 0:27:12.919 more aware of the sounds of the forest. There was 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:22.120