We want to thank our Dear Guest for writing this beautiful review.
RESERVATIONS Found this place last minute, we contacted reception and normally they only take reservations for tours at least one day in advance but Ernesto was super helpful and welcomed us to stop by within a few hours for their chocolate tour. Thank you Ernesto for the last minute hospitality! CHOCOLATE TOUR I’ve traveled around the la fortuna/arenal area and there are many coffee and chocolate tours but I was looking for something more hands on with the chocolate. At finca nueva, we started off at the reception area, guide walked us to the area where cacao beans grew on the farm, explained the history of chocolate, it’s benefits and uses back in the day as currency and where it is now. We picked cacao off the tree, sampled the seeds from the cacao, roasted the beans over a hot pan, cracked them open and experienced both the traditional way of grinding the beans into powder by hand on a lava stone rock as well as a modern everyday grinder. We then made the cacao into hot chocolate both the old fashioned way as well as the way we know hot chocolate to be today with milk and sugar. But the hot chocolate tasted good and it didn’t really need sugar at all! We also had a chance to taste the cacao butter that gets extracted in the process of making chocolate. As we finished sipping the last of the hot chocolate thinking the tour was coming to an end, we were taken to the kitchen for part 2 – actually making our own chocolate! We had hands on experience with being able to create chocolate into our own flavors and take them home (unless you wolf down a dozen chocolate pieces in one go). DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE MARIOLA BEES! In addition to the chocolates being the main attraction of this tour, there were two boxes of bee hives being kept that caught my eye and our guide explained to us the importance of the Mariola bees to the regeneration of the forests, native to Costa Rica, these cute little bees are stingless and create one of the most expensive but natural healants of honey (cures surfers eye, cataracts, bacterial infections and more!). These little guys are so cute, don’t forget to investigate them while you make hot chocolate! Loved finca nueva, never had a chance to try their organic farm to table restaurant but definitely recommend this chocolate tour and would come back to check our their food for sure! They are a little off the beaten tourist path but worth the visit if you like organic, natural and hands on kind of experience!
