Original Beans Collection

Our Craft Cacaos

Every journey starts with a single bean

We go to the farthest corners of the globe to bring you the rare. Since 2008, our intrepid Bean Team ventures into the most remote, most biologically diverse and most threatened ecoregions - or simply: the biodiversity hotspots - to bring original beans to you.

Know your beans

Knowing where your cacao is from goes beyond pointing to a place on a map. It’s knowing that the environment around it is protected, the people who cultivate it empowered and the plants from which it grows regenerated. In addition to pure, delicious taste, that’s the promise every bar of Original Beans keeps. Share the rare. And spare it.

PURELY DELICIOUS

Cacao is craft

Fermentation is a microbiological miracle. Good fermentation makes goodfood - from grapes, milk, sourdough, and … Original Beans cacaos.

Ourcraft of cacao starts with the craft of regenerative farming. It movesthrough fermentation (mostly spontaneous), drying (sun only), storing(zero fumigation), roasting (slow and low), grinding (16my particles),conching (medium long) and tempering (gentle, gentle). Where cacao endsand chocolate starts is anyone’s crafty guess.

Know your beans

Rare cacaos

Beans of wisdom, our select tribal cacaos represent the deep history and commitment of the indigenous tribes who know—and grow—them best. Their singular tastes revive long-forgotten human experiences of living in harmony with nature. Truly exclusive, they have no peer in making a higher social or environmental impact.

Arhuaco Lands, Colombia
Preserve the harmonious ways
of the Arhuaco tribe
Selva Zoque, Mexico
Revive the spirited traditions
of the Zoque tribe

No place is too high (the 1200m at which our Cusco Chuncho grows) nor too hidden (the wild Beniano that can only be reached by boat) to collect the rarest of beans. These chocolates’ flavours travel to the far reaches of the imagination
Arhuaco Lands, Colombia
Preserve the harmonious ways
of the Arhuaco tribe
Selva Zoque, Mexico
Revive the spirited traditions
of the Zoque tribe


These ultra rare beans (nearly extinct in the case of Piura Porcelana and Papua Kerafat upon their rediscovery) are aromatic time capsules from the earth’s remotest regions like the amazingly biodiverse Udzungwa Mountain National Park.

Piura Valley, Peru
Help Peru's bright butterfly
collection stay aloft
Udzungwa Park, Tanzania
Give Udzungwa's playful
elephants safe passage
Virunga Park, Congo DR
Protect the last 800 mountain gorillas
deep in Congo
Virunga Park, Congo Dr
Empower strong women
with strong cacao
SACRED CUSCO VALLEY, PERU
Keep the
mighty
condor
in flight

Know your beans

Rare cacaos
  • Select
    TRibal

  • Rarest
    of Rare

  • ultra
    rare

  • rare

Arhuaco Lands, Colombia
Preserve the harmonious ways
of the Arhuaco tribe
Selva Zoque, Mexico
Revive the spirited traditions
of the Zoque tribe

SACRED CUSCO VALLEY, PERU
Keep the
mighty
condor
in flight
BENI AMAZON, BOLIVIA
Safeguard wild cacao lands, home to
the vivid blue-throated macaws
Piura Valley, Peru
Help Peru's bright butterfly
collection stay aloft
Udzungwa Park, Tanzania
Give Udzungwa's playful
elephants safe passage
Virunga Park, Congo DR
Protect the last 800 mountain gorillas
deep in Congo
Virunga Park, Congo Dr
Empower strong women
with strong cacao
SACRED CUSCO VALLEY, PERU
Keep the
mighty
condor
in flight

Open sourcing

Craft Cacao Standard

We joke that you can always make bad chocolate from good beans, but not the other way around. Bad cacao always reveals itself as unpalatable in too many ways: from flavor defects, to social injustice to environmental degradation.

To assure tasty beans that go down well in every respect, we have created the world's first and only craft cacao standard. Think of a standard as a to-do list. With the Craft Cacao Standard we offer an open source to-do list on how to make good beans in manners that regenerate our world.

Here is the Standard for you. You want to directly taste and test top-rated craft cacaos? Allow us to hook you up with Cacao Latitudes, our friends and partners in the craft cacao trade. Whatever your interest, connect to us today.

EARTH’S RAREST PLACES

The Original Beans
Collection