Have you ever taken a craft chocolate tour?! It's sort of like a wine tasting tour, but with chocolate.....ummm, sign us up please!
Manoa Chocolate Hawaii is a Hawaii based chocolate maker. They specialize in making craft chocolate using locally sourced cacao beans, as well as cacao beans carefully purchased through direct trade from around the world.
Planning Your Visit
Manoa Chocolate is located in Kailua, Hawaii on the island of Oahu. There is metered parking available in the parking lot directly in front of the store or along the street. If you forget to bring change, Manoa Chocolate has change available inside. These meters are frequently checked, so be sure to pay and avoid a ticket.
The tour lasts about 90 minutes, and reservations must be made ahead of time. If you are short on time, you can stop in to taste some of their delicious chocolate, and shop around without taking the tour.
Did you know that Hawaii is the only US state that can grow cacao commercially due to the tropical climate?!!
The cacao fruit tree is grown on several of the islands and is typically harvested once or twice a year over several months. When the fruit is harvested, farmers carefully cut from the trunk and branches without cutting the fruit buds. It is important to leave the fruit buds as this is where the new flowers and fruits are produced.
Our Chocolate Experience
We will not lie, we went into the chocolate tour expecting to indulge in various flavors and types of chocolate (which we totally did), and be on our way, but the tour was so much more.
It was extremely educational, and opened our eyes to the craft chocolate industry. Learning about the cacao trees, trying the fruit and beans, learning about the process of drying out the cacao beans, making cacao nibs, and of course watching the chocolate being made....our minds were blown!
If you are unfamiliar with craft chocolate, I highly recommend taking a tour at Manoa Chocolate and researching the craft chocolate industry. This was such a unique Hawaii food experience. The employees at Manoa Chocolate are truly knowledgeable in their craft, sommeliers of chocolate if you will.
We all had a great time learning about the chocolate process and sampling all of the unique Manoa Chocolate flavors.
If you're looking for more unique experiences on Oahu, check out our post "Unique Experiences on Oahu, Hawaii" (coming soon!).
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