A guide written from the farm

Panacacao is an independent, bilingual guide to cacao and chocolate in Panama, written from a working cacao farm in Bocas del Toro.

Panacacao started with a simple frustration: Panama grows some of the most interesting cacao in Central America, from the misty agroforests of Bocas del Toro to nearly pure Criollo trees hiding in the dry hills of Azuero, and almost nothing about it is written down in one place. Research is scarce, the data disagree, and most of what visitors read is a tour listing.

We run Finca Montezuma, a cacao farm and chocolate workshop in Bocas del Toro, and spend our days doing the things this site describes: cutting pods, arguing about fermentation, failing to dry beans in the rain, and hosting people who have never seen a cacao tree. The site is our notebook, opened to the public.

Everything here is sourced. Where a number comes from MIDA, the census, a published study or a cooperative profile, we link it. Where we only have what growers tell us, we say so. If you spot a mistake, write to us.

How the site pays for itself: some product links go to Amazon and earn a small commission, and we may add tasteful ads later. We never take money from a tour operator or maker to be listed, and we say which farm is ours.

Say hello

hola@panacacao.com · Instagram · finca-montezuma.com