Cocoa Origins
Mababu, Tanzania
- Partner
- Mababu Village Cocoa Growers
- Variety
- Amelonado and Trinitario hybrids
- Relationship
- Partners since 2012
Rural southwest Tanzania, where our work with the Empowered Girls and Enlightened Boys Clubs has run for over a decade alongside cocoa buying.
The place
Mababu is a village in the Kyela district near the northern tip of Lake Nyasa. Cocoa grows between rice paddies and banana stands, and the road in is impassable for part of the rainy season.
The beans
Before we arrived, most Mababu cocoa was sold wet to traders. We funded fermentation boxes and drying beds and paid for the extra labour, and the flavour changed completely: raspberry, citrus peel and a bright, almost wine-like acidity.
Empowered Girls and Enlightened Boys
Lawren Eden founded the clubs in 2013. They now support several hundred students each year with school fees, mentorship, sanitary supplies and a lunch program funded entirely by cocoa profit share.
In the bar
The 72% Mababu bar is the purest expression, and Mababu beans give the Super Dark Blend its lift.
