Hello, this is Kotaro Ezawa from Mamano.

This year, we are once again beginning the gradual harvest of wild cacao from the Ecuadorian Amazon, especially the white cacao of the 「Curaray」 type, which is almost never turned into chocolate anywhere in the world.

In a typical cacao plantation, around 1,200 cacao trees are planted per hectare （100 m × 100 m）.
The cacao Mamano sources, however, mainly comes from agroforestry farms, where there are about 400 to 500 trees per hectare. Even this is considered very sparse.

Wild cacao is even rarer, with only around 20 trees growing per hectare.

Most of these trees are very old, and many are believed to be over 100 years old.

As a result, each tree produces only a small number of pods. Harvesting them requires climbing the trees and reaching the fruit with long poles, making this cacao extremely labor-intensive to collect.

Even in the best years, the harvest amounts to no more than around 100 kilograms. Still, with the help of our local association partners, we are doing our best so that more people can experience this extraordinary chocolate with its rose and lavender-like aroma.

We hope you will look forward to it.