WEBVTT - Ghost Chocolate 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:14.600 I didn't want to do the nine five. I was 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:19.079 not going to take the normal path. I'm sitting in 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.880 a hammock in well paradise if your idea of paradise 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.360 is kind of the classic one. Lush rainforests, green hills, 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.960 clear streams, too many chattering birds and monkeys to count. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.239 At night, the wood swarm with headlight beetles, which are 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:38.800 like giant fireflies. It feels like Pandora. I wanted to 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:40.919 go see some chocolate forests, and I wanted to go 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.320 catch sneaks and crocodiles and stuff that I did in 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.360 the hammock. Beside me is Jacob Marlin, and this is 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.840 his baby. The Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental Education 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.960 or be Free, I one thousand acre preserve in the 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.120 Maya Mountains, dotted with thatch huts and visiting biologists who 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:01.920 come here from all over the world to study what 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.560 a healthy rainforest is like. Beefree is right at the 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:10.280 juncture of several other huge preserves, including the Bladen Nature Reserve, 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.200 the crown jewel of Belize wilderness areas, which is why 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.800 Jacob bought it thirty years ago and has lived here 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.080 as its conservator ever since. It connects all the other 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:25.720 preserves into one massive wild forest. Jacob is laid back 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.720 dude in his fifties. His long hair parted in the middle. 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.679 Kind of reminds me of the actor Crispin Glover. He 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.399 came here as the reptile guy on a team of 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.959 biologists that were exploring the Bladon, which is famously remote 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.520 and inaccessible. As he hiked his way through it, Jacob 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.200 felt like he'd entered a time capsule. We went to 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.440 places that no human had been since St. Chimayah. We 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:53.960 came upon clay statues of monkey and jaguar gods. We 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.120 saw barrel grounds of maya stuff. Clearly no one had 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.960 been there. For the next two weeks, Jacob found himself 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.400 exploring a world straight out of a fantasy novel. You're like, 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.440 oh my god, I think I say a cave opening, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:07.520 and then you go in there, and then you walk 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.200 for nine hours, and then you look down and fifty 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.360 feet below you there's a massive river flowing. And then 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.080 you look over there and there's like mine pottery and 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.079 skeletons and ship scattered over there. Then swim out the 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.320 cave and go over here, and then you find two 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:26.120 fifty spider monkeys swinging down. Then there's a jaguar over there. 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:31.560 That's what our expedition was like. It's lost the whole time. 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.520 I mean, we were all lost. It was madness, but 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.080 it was the best kind of madness, the kind he 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:39.799 wanted to devote his life too. When I came out, 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.119 I was completely blown away, and I was like, Oh 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.600 my god, this place is incredible. I wonder if I 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.160 could get involved in this place. In fact, the Blatant 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.240 was so full of wonders that he overlooked one of 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:55.600 them entirely. I remember passing wild cacao trees, which I 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.959 was like, Oh, it's a wild cocow. Who cares to Jacob, 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.120 cocao was agriculture and he was a nature guy. So 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:05.560 he devoted his life to preserving the big nature of 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.200 the Blatant and forgot all about the cacao. But little 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.400 did he know that that particular cocao hiding in plain 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.560 sight in the Maya Mountains would end up being the 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.960 key to protecting the very rainforest he devoted his life too, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:25.640 and possibly a whole lot more. He was living with 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:30.440 ancient ghosts that had been waiting centuries to speak their 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:38.400 Peace of Kaleidoscope and i Heeart podcasts. This is Obsessions 0:03:38.800 --> 0:04:11.040 Wild Chocolate. I'm Roman jameson chapter five Ghost Chocolate. The 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.280 Forest of Belieze contain more than a thousand species of trees, 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:19.880 astounding diversity. To Jacob, pacat was just one of those thousands. 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.560 But as he explored his preserved he began catching his 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:25.880 eye more and more. Some of the pods are one 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.920 color or another color or another color. Some are yellow 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.919 when they're ripe, Some are orange when they are oranges, 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:34.840 purple when they're right. Some are green when they're ripe. 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.480 Some are multi colored when they're right. It's different shapes, 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.880 a little bit different sizes. The trees had a lot 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.320 of diversity in appearance, but they had one very important 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.760 thing in common. Sometimes you'd walk up to a tree 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:48.880 it's and it's a nine percent shade to the middle 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:55.479 of the forest shade, and its covered ponds. To the 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.800 average person that might not sound like a big deal, 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.719 but to people who think about sustainable food production, that's 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.800 the holy grail. Think about every crop humans have cultivated, 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:11.400 corn rice, gale, whatever, They all need full sun. Same 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.920 for the modern strains of cacao, we've used for a century, 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.279 and that means that growing food often means wiping out 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.080 for us. And that's been especially true for cacao in 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:26.560 West Africa, destroying national parks. It's eradicating species. It's uh, 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.919 I'm like, fuck, caca is horrible, but not this cacao. 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.800 This stuff is weird. It is, it's weird. The trees 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:41.200 are different. These are not hardy, robust plants. These are 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.520 rainforest play they want you know, don't don't put them 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.280 in the sun. Don't give them any sun. These trees 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:54.760 do best in shade, and if you give them, lestie 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:59.919 die good. I know, I know. It's amazing, amazing because 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.240 a tree that could flourish and produce fruit in the 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.680 deep shade of the jungle that requires rainforests over its head, well, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.479 that could turn farming into a way to grow new 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.680 rainforests and pay for it. So Jacob got super curious 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.680 about these cocoa trees, and the first step was to 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.640 find out how many he had. So in two thousand 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.320 twelve he hired Elmer Salama, a local mind, got to 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.120 map them. So I did the expedition for I think 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:32.680 like two three years. Find do them white trees, new jungles, 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:41.479 just wandering around. So I didn't have any GPS, just 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:47.600 my memories. And you're started cutting trialsutting trels on to leg, 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.680 you know. And I found it about almost like three 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.080 on the trees wild trees here, and it's out of 0:06:54.080 --> 0:07:00.640 water place phenotypes. We have harpolo orange, who have guint 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.920 to yellow. We have um print to green. Then we 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.279 have multiple colors. Those are the four types of trees 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.320 they've identified, all named for the colors of their pods 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.160 as they ripen. All four are members of the same 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.400 shade loving variety, which Jacob hoped could be the engine 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.760 of his rainforest revival scheme if, of course, it produced 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.640 delicious chocolate. So it was like, well, shut up, man, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:26.600 let's make some chocolate because if nothing else, we could 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.680 chocolate here like chocolate. Yeah, why not, just as like 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.440 a hobby. As we tore the preserve, Jacob and Elmer 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:34.680 offered to snag a couple of pods for me to 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.920 show me their special qualities. But the pods are twenty 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:45.000 feet up, like three four five. That's like five pods, guys, 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:50.400 most progress, yeah, yeah, because what we do be hardest 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:55.880 do bring along bush stick with h Yeah, gonna. Cahoons 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.240 are crazy palms. Their fronts could be thirty ft long, 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.240 shooting up from the ground. And these graceful arcs walking 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.240 through a Calhoun grove you expect to come upon a 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.120 Brontosaurus munging on them. The immense fronds are the go 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.040 to choice for roofing, and the sharp and central ribs 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.040 make awesome jousting lances for cutting to cow pods out 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.680 of trees. Get a catch here, thing you like? Oh 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.119 I see, so you just scrape scrape up the drunk 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.880 and got it and there it is in my hand. 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.320 To cow with some very unusual qualities. The multicolor and 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.440 the purple orange had close to like almost six cocoa 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.600 butts super high super high rich creamy chocolate. Some people 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.599 say it tastes like almost like milk chocolate. It's a 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.600 light brownish red shot, zero bitterness, there's nothing bitter about it, 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.520 and it doesn't even taste that much like chocolate. What 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.680 you think of his chocolate Like at first, Jacob's chocolate 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.560 making skills were limited, but he kept dialing it in 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.360 and so like every year about this time we go 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.200 out there with backpacks and and I'd bring up to 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.360 the station and make chocolate with him, and I'd experim him. 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.360 I'm learning, I'm trying to figure things out. People would 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.760 come through here and it's like that creole. You can't 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:14.480 believe that that stuff is probably really special. That word 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.040 creoio is a famous and sacred term in the world 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.480 of chocolate. But Jacob was only just discovering the treasure 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.760 he had on his hands. I'm learning about creb I 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.200 don't really know much about what that meant, but it's like, okay, 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.560 so it's it's a relic cocao. It's not prow much. 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.240 Creoa was the original cacao of the ancient mile the 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.520 variety they cultivated all over their empire and introduced the 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:40.040 Spanish and the fift hundreds. The smooth, creamy flavor of 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.440 creoia made chocolate a worldwide obsession. It was the only 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.760 chocolate anyone knew until the seventeen hundreds, when it began 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.720 to get wiped out by disease. Soon it was replaced 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.160 by hardier and more productive hybrid varieties, varieties that didn't 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.160 taste as good, but we're easier to draw, and those 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.280 varieties took over the world For decades, craft chocolate cares 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.600 have been scouring Central America for sources of Creoia. The 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.200 best they can usually find are hybrids that have a 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.440 percentage of creoo gens and a trace of that original 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:14.880 creole smoothness. Pure creoia. You never see it. But Jacob 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.240 began wondering about his three trees if there was anywhere 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.760 some old creoio strains could have escaped hybridization that was 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.160 in the middle of one of the most inaccessible rainforests 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:29.560 in the world. It's least explored, least disturbed, most unspoiled place. 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:36.040 Everything up there. It just feels like this stuff has 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.720 always been here, just old. So he embarked on a 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.360 new quest, find someone who would tell him just how 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.680 special this stuff was and find out if anyone cared. 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.600 I want to taste of some of this God love chocolate. 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.840 We got you covered. Kalia Scop has joined forces with 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.600 Louise Abram and Stetler Chocolate to make a special box 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.800 to go along with its very podcast Taste One has 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.960 driven many to near madness at www dot Stetler dash 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:28.400 Chocolate dot com. What I always remember is the smell, 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:33.160 just the smell of my ya Ya's kitchen during the summer. 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.680 Remember Matt Capoda, the Salt Lake, Delhi guy who became 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.880 America's heirloom chocolate champion. Matt credits his Greek grandmother for 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.480 his passion for rare ingredients and unusual flavors. She had 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:48.000 a tiny little plot in Salt Lake City. She grew 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.640 her own potatoes, dandylion greens. You know, her produce didn't 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:53.839 taste like the produce you could buy in the grocery store. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.640 So I became accustomed to looking for flavors that don't 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.760 really exist in you know what has become a pretty 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.960 monoculture food system. Taste and smell are some of the 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.319 first most important ways that we make meaning of the 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.360 world around us. They're the raw material of experience, the 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.600 scaffolding upon which we hang our memories. They're the way 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.360 each generation passes its passions to the next. No matter 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.800 where you're from in the world, we have beautiful traditions, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:28.760 delicious foods, incredibly rich ingredients that are disappearing at an 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.560 alarming rate over the years. Matt had built Caputos into 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.880 a show house for these cultural Touchsdownes, but he'd also 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.720 watched in dismay. As those flavors disappeared, it was harder 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:45.040 and harder to get, you know, a raw milk, pecorino, romano. 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.320 And I would see this trajectory in every category, not 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.920 just cheese, of things getting more and more homogenized, more 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.920 and more flavorless. As he watched industrial agriculture set fire 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.240 to the world's libraries of flavor, Matt became convinced that 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.000 he had to be a kind of librarian, preserving as 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.199 many of the great flavor manuscripts as he could, and 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.680 cacao seemed like a special case, with some of the 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.959 most endangered masterpieces of all he wanted to help. Then 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.520 he heard about a new initiative that captured his imagination, 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.800 the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund. The goal of the project 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.400 was to identify the world's great cocaws with an expert 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.160 tasting panel and to prove their uniqueness through genetic testing. 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.040 That certification would be the stamp of approval, drawing the 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.640 attention of Beam to Bar chocolate makers. The first designee 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.160 was an easy call, Volker Lehman and his Tranquilidad beans. 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.200 Soon other designees were added, including Emily Stones my Mountain 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:45.199 cocao in sen Jacob submitted the be free beans, hoping 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.400 they had enough Creoo parentage to be something special, and 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.559 soon enough he heard back from the committee congratulations, your 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.880 beans have made the cut. I heard that from one 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.359 of their board members. Oh, We're going to be announcing 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:03.360 this your pure CREOLEO in San Francisco at this big 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.040 chocolate event. And I was like, you are. I mean, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:12.400 that sounds I'm coming. Thanks for not inviting me, but 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:14.719 I'm like, I'm sucking going to San Francisco. God damn it. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.280 So he attends the awards ceremony. The audience is student 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.600 in fifty well dressed people in the world of chocolate, 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.480 and the m C is Ed Sege, a legend in 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.400 the fine chocolate industry, and to Jacob's amazement, ed is 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.720 getting all worked up over Jacob's beans and he's talking 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:35.200 about pure Creoo. It's the only pure cacao known in 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:40.080 the world. The tasting parils never tasted anything quite this 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.960 Araban before pure creator Parentidge blah blah blah, and I'm like, 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.680 what what does that even mean? And and then he's done, 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.000 and I was like, wait a minute. So I stand 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:59.520 up and I said, wait, a minute. I'm the guy 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.640 that submit of those means you're not gonna invite me up. 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.000 Jacob was just looking for a little love, but he 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.280 got a lot. After the ceremony, it was swarmed by 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.280 chocolate makers. Could they get some samples of those beans? 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.200 How about a few tons? Did he need a business partner? 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.040 He soon found out why. The expert tasting panel had 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.000 tasted Jacob's submission and found it to be a paragon 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.880 of smooth and silky chocolate. Then the genesis of the U. S. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.800 D A did their thing and came away and shocked. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.960 These beans weren't high in preoil content. They were a 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:41.840 hundred percent kreoia. In other words, this was the original 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.120 cow of the Maya, a direct line back to the 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.880 one that existed before Europeans ever got involved. Somehow, it 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.760 had hold up in the Maya Mountains for a thousand years, 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.520 and now it was ready for re entry. The panel's 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.240 declaration gave Jacob all the incentive he needed to try 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.240 to make that delicious, shade loving cow a flagship of 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:06.120 rainforest restoration, and those original three trees became sacred to him. 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:08.920 You know, we all touched these trees. Yeah, I don't 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.160 do anything. All we do is harvest pods, collect data, 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.880 and collect budwood. That budwood super important. Budwood is the 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.280 newly formed tips of branches that are used to grow 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.400 an exact duplicate of the mother tree. When Jacob returned 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:24.880 from his trip to the States, he's set to work planting. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.520 We have almost ten thousand trees of this material now growing, 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:34.200 ten thousand trees, ten thousand baby creas, a forest of 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:38.440 ancient mind CaCO rising up in the Belize wilds, and 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.560 they are just the beginning. If Jacob has his way, 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.720 those ten thousand trees will give birth to a million more, 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.360 not just a bee free but anywhere anyone wants to 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.600 grow new rain forests and figure out a way to 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.560 pay for it. As a bonus, we'll all get to 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:58.120 experience this ghost of chocolate past. Jacob also became the 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.160 volunteer president of the air Land could Cow Preservation Fund, 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.360 which is now designated sixteen of the world's cocaos as 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.440 essential cultural heritage. That's helped bring recognition and a decent 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.719 income to the farmers who are keeping these masterpieces alive. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.359 But it isn't always enough. Ironically, it couldn't save the 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:21.800 very first DESIGNI Vulgar Layman. After years of dodging bullet 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.320 after bullet in the jungle, he was about to take 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:30.720 one right in the heart. Everything went just upside down, 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.560 and all from one moment to the other. I thought 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:37.520 I was doing the good things, and all of a 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.800 sudden I was in turmoil. You know, the sky was 0:17:42.840 --> 0:18:11.560 falling on my head. One thing I noticed right away 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.959 when I came back to Bolivia in was that whatever 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.040 romance the jungle had once held for Vulgar, it was 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:24.320 long gone. It seems like that the birds in in 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.439 the in the jungle, in the Amazone and in the 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:33.639 tropical here, they don't know how to sing. It seems 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:38.920 like they never went to singing school. And it most 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:43.560 and most of it is it's like more like shouting noise. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:51.400 Uh like this, And there's one I maybe we're here. 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:58.400 We're here. It's like a like a dying sound. It's 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:03.679 it's like somebody is strangling the bird while he tries 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:11.680 to sing. Like that sounded like a different guy from 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:13.240 the one I had left on top of the world. 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.240 After our visit to the euro Care, they'd agreed to 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.120 provide fifteen tons of cacao, which meant he'd be delivering 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.800 forty five tons to felsh Lean three shipping containers. But 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.919 he needed serious capital. He needed to build a fermentation 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.080 center in the jungle, He needed boats, and he had 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.160 to hire people to do the buying and transporting for him. 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.560 Most of all, he needed cash to pay all the harvesters, 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.040 so he took on investors. It was a huge gamble, 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.119 but the first year it worked great. He produced more 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.399 cal than ever. The quality was awesome. Felsh Lean was 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.480 thrilled and he made his payments. It worked the next 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.399 year too. He felt like the system he'd always envisioned 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.480 in his mind was finally up and running. But in 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.760 three years into his business, the rains came even harder 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.879 than usual. The mom Rae flooded badly. I wasn't in 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.880 very good terms with the people, so I trusted them 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.600 and I asked him, would that be cacao? Yeah? Yeah, 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.359 there will be a lot of cacal, you know, but 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.080 give you us so much and repay you don't worry. 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.440 So he flashed fifty into the jungle, expecting to get 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.640 twice that much in cacao out of it. For weeks later, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.879 the harvest trickled in just twenty worth of cocao. Vulker 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.320 was understanding despite the knot in his stomach. He said, fine, 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.679 whatever things get weird in the jungle, just give me 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.159 back the rest of the money. And his buyers said, well, 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.680 here's the thing. We gave the money to the pickers 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:52.359 and they spend it all. Sorry, thirty grand just evaporated 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.280 into the bush. What was he going to do? Bring 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.280 a legal case against the whole forest. He decided to 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.679 eat the losses himself. Liked the guys and they've had 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.399 a good track record until then. I said, that's not 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.640 a problem. Okay, you owe me so for the next year. Yeah, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:13.080 next year, and so we we leveled this out. It's 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.720 not such a great deal. In other words, no worries. 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.399 Consider it an advance on next year's Kao. He comes 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:23.600 so close, and he just really didn't want to see 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.040 this one go down the tubes. He was now fully 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.800 emotionally invested. But then it was time to talk to 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:31.359 his lenders and explained that he couldn't make his payment 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:36.240 this year, and they were not emotionally invested. I said, okay, 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:41.679 this year I present a loss, and they said what 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.840 is the loss? Um, please explain you know, I said, yeah, 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.639 loss is when you don't have earnings. You know you 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.480 you're on the negative. Yeah. Negative is no good? Yeah. 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.840 Oh could we sue you? Yeah? Yeah, you have to 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.560 give us the money back. I said, the money is 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.679 with the people in the jungle. I explained it again 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.840 to you if you want, I'm happy to explain it again. 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:11.640 So I gave the money. The horfus was low. So 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:16.160 now we have to recover the loss. Oh loss, no no, no, no, no, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.280 you have to give us a monthay, I said, I 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.919 have no money. Oh yeah, then we seize your as 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:31.760 it Okay. I ended up in a lawsuit, total fucking disaster, 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.520 leans on his house and on his business. He had 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:40.040 to declare bankruptcy. His marriage crumbled. Later, as we were 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:44.080 driving around Bolivia looking for a cowdibi, Walker confessed just 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.480 how devastating it all was to his life and his psyche. 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:49.440 I mean, it seems like it must have been hard 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.080 just personally to walk like when you just gotten all 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:54.879 that recognition, you knew you were making one of the 0:22:54.920 --> 0:23:01.040 best chocolates in the world. It took me, um, you know, 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:10.639 from basically from fourteen to until last year actually to 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:20.760 recover um financially or personally, spiritually entirely. Yeah, everything, everything 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:25.280 a little bit because everything is interlinked, and you know, 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:31.240 and and I wanted to save ton Kilda, and I 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:35.160 wanted to save at least you know this part. Yes, 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:37.320 his creditors were coming for his glove and the cow 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:40.800 forest man. You must have been furious at a lot 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:48.000 of people. I had a little it was a section 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:52.760 of rage and now a pure rage. I would now 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:54.600 with a gun in my hand, I would have killed 0:23:54.640 --> 0:24:01.639 some people. Maybe. Fortunately he didn't. In fact, at the 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:05.159 moment of maximum rage, when he thought he might explode, 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:10.800 he just let it all go. The lawsuits, the frustration, 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:15.359 the fury gone. The guys who just lost all his 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:17.640 money in the jungle. He knew they were hard up, 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:20.119 so we said, why don't you just live in my 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:22.440 house and trided ad for free until you get back 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:25.800 on your feet. Ever since, I'm calm. I'm much calm, 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:32.760 was than be far much more. Oh off, Budda is 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:41.480 is nothing. You know. I'm more calm than the river 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.160 Sitata was sitting at. Have you ever been in touch 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:48.680 with those guys? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:51.920 I saw. Yeah. Yeah, once in a while I remind 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:54.760 them to pay me and then they laugh and say, yeah, yeah, 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:59.640 we do. Is that just kind of how things work here? Yeah? Yeah, 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:03.440 Just forget about it and go off. It's like a 0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:07.600 pant divorce. You know, you cannot suffer forever, you know, 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:13.560 you have to go on with your life. And he did. 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:18.040 In fact, he pulled a full Siddartha. He just decided 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:22.840 to walk away from Tranquila Dad, from Bolivia, from Cacao, 0:25:23.200 --> 0:25:27.000 from everything, a new start. But he did need to 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:29.000 make good on his debts, so he took a job 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:33.200 as a consultant with Conservation International in Costa Rica, living 0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:37.119 like a hermit, saving every penny. And with that, it 0:25:37.200 --> 0:25:40.880 seemed like the dream of wild Cacao had died. Perhaps 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:44.720 it was just too hard, too remote, too iffy. A 0:25:44.760 --> 0:25:50.200 successful coco business requires predictability, and Amazon eats predictability for breakfast. 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:53.800 But unbeknownst to Vulcar, even as he struggled to put 0:25:53.840 --> 0:25:56.400 Coco out of his mind for good, the seeds were 0:25:56.400 --> 0:25:59.600 taking hold on new ground, and the next crop of 0:25:59.640 --> 0:26:06.320 cocaw lenders was about to blossom the same year he 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:10.440 was walking away from the Amazon Louisa Abraham was plunging 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:16.160 in year by year, just coming and just showing them 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:20.240 that I was not gonna be defeated, like I was 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:25.960 going to persist, And she wasn't going to let European 0:26:26.040 --> 0:26:29.320 chocolate makers or loan sharks tell her how to operate. 0:26:30.040 --> 0:26:32.280 She was going to do it all on her own terms. 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:44.440 A new hope next week on Obsessions Wild Chocolate. Wild 0:26:44.480 --> 0:26:48.080 Chocolate is a Kaleidoscope production with I Heeart Podcasts, hosted 0:26:48.080 --> 0:26:50.960 and reported by me Rowan Jacobson and produced by Shane 0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:54.679 McKeon at Nice Marmot Media, Edited by Kate Osborne and 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:58.000 my Guest out of Kudor. Sound design and mixing by Soundboard. 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:02.080 Original music composition by NCER Stevenson, a k a Botany 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:06.120 production help from Baheeny Shorty from My Heart. Our executive 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:10.000 producers are Katrina Norbelle and Nikki Etre. Special thanks to 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:15.760