Bocas del Toro is where Panamanian cacao lives. Ninety-nine percent of the national crop comes from the humid Caribbean lowlands around Almirante and Changuinola and from the islands of the archipelago, grown mostly by Ngäbe and Naso families on plots that average three and a half hectares under banana, laurel and jungle shade. Cacao here boomed in the 1920s on the back of the banana companies, slumped through the Second World War, and came back through COCABO, the cooperative founded in Almirante in 1952 that is still the oldest in the country and exports certified organic, fair-trade beans. Today the province is also where the country’s chocolate culture is being invented: farm tours, a yearly fair, tasting courses and a new generation of growers arguing about genetics and fermentation on WhatsApp.
What to know
- A 2026 genetics study found a broad mix of ancestry in Bocas trees: Amelonado with Nacional, Nanay, SCA and Iquitos lines. Flat beans sit next to floral and citrus ones on the same farm.
- Mayamei Cacao’s beans took bronze at the 2021 Cocoa of Excellence Awards, the first Panamanian cacao in the world’s top 50.
- Drying is the hard part. Three months of near-daily rain mean sun-drying can take over a month, so farms are building solar and hybrid dryers.
- Harvest peaks from October to January, which is also the best time to visit a farm.
- The Bocas Showcolate Fair has run every year since 2019 and gathers growers, makers and researchers in early October.
Visiting
Fly or bus to Bocas Town, then boat. Oreba (Ngäbe community, from Almirante), Mayamei Cacao (Ojo de Agua), Up in the Hill and La Loma (Bastimentos), Green Acres (Dolphin Bay) and Finca Montezuma (Dolphin Bay) all run hands-on chocolate tours, and in Bocas Town Wild Cane Chocolate runs a chocolate-making experience while Native Chocolate has a tasting stand. Bring a rain jacket in any month.
- Finca Montezuma: Cacao Tasting Tour & Chocolate Workshop, Dolphin Bay, 20–25 min by water taxi from Bocas Town. Walk under 60-year-old cacao trees with sloths and kinkajous overhead, taste the pulp straight from the pod and the bean at every stage (raw, fermented, dried, roasted), then hot chocolate, nib brittle and truffles. The workshop adds roasting, grinding and brewing your own recipe, making brittle and rolling coconut-milk truffles to take home. Overwater cabins and treehouses if you want to stay. Our home base. Website →
- Mayamei Cacao, farm to bar, Ojo de Agua, Almirante (mainland). Every production stage on an award-winning women-led farm, ending with two personalised bars you make yourself. A guided tasting of Panamanian chocolate is the shorter option. Website →
- Up in the Hill (Pure Tree Experience), Top of Bastimentos Island, walk up from Old Bank or Wizard Beach. A family-run organic farm and café on the highest hill of Bastimentos, going since 2003. Chocolate plus permaculture, coconut oil and botanicals, with a view that justifies the climb. Book ahead. Website →
- Green Acres Chocolate Farm, Cerro Brujo, south shore of Dolphin Bay, ~10 miles by boat from Bocas Town. A 30-acre cacao plantation and botanical garden with sloths, howler monkeys and poison-dart frogs along the trail. Harvest to roast with plenty of samples; also home to the Planet Rehab reforestation nonprofit and a jungle casita for overnight stays. Website →
- La Loma Jungle Lodge cacao tour, Isla Bastimentos, boat only from Bocas Town. A 55-acre rainforest reserve and lodge whose cacao is tended with the Bahía Honda Ngäbe-Buglé community, who lead the tour. Included for guests; day visitors get a farm-sourced lunch. Ages 8 and up. Website →
- Wild Cane Chocolate: A Chocolate Affair, Bocas Town, Isla Colón. A tree-to-bar chocolate-making experience with the chocolatier herself, in town, no boat needed: cacao, coconuts and tropical fruit from local producers turned into bars, bonbons and cocada. Ask about the tasting evenings too. Website →
- Native Chocolate tasting, Bocas Town, Isla Colón. Not a farm, but the easiest cacao stop on the island: a stand where you taste every stone-ground flavour, including the hot-pepper bar, before you buy. Website →
Sources: La Estrella de Panamá, El legado del cacao · Newsroom Panama, Panama’s cacao rush (2026) · Equal Exchange, COCABO profile · IDIAP, Cacao en sistemas agroforestales