The one thing we did do in Cusco so far was enroll in a chocolate-making workshop. We started the workshop by learning about the cacao tree, how it grows and how it is harvested. We learned how the chocolate is made from the bean to the actual chocolate bar. We tasted the bib (contents of the cacao bean) completely raw and then we roasted some and tasted that; both were rather bitter for my taste. After the roasting of the beans, we ground them by hand into a powdering, pasty finish.
We used the grounded beans to make 2 different hot chocolates, one with chili powder and one with sugar and milk.
The last and best part of the workshop was to make your own chocolate. Everyone got their own mold and bowl of 70% chocolate. You could mix different ingredients into your molds, such as nuts, coffee, raisins, salt, chili powder, quinoa, cinnamon, and anis. You could also add powdered milk and sugar to change the sweetness of the chocolate. I made mine with a random mix of ingredients; I forget what I mixed with what. So far, some turned out great and some I wouldn’t recommend others to eat. Jack went with his typical strategic approach, arranging everything with prefect common sense and drawing a diagram to make sure he knew what was what. The workshop turned out to be an awesome way to fill 2 hours.
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