CACAO & CHOCOLATE · LA FORTUNA · COSTA RICA
Chocolate from the Tree, in La Fortuna
Chocolate from the Tree is a two-hour visit to a working cacao farm outside La Fortuna, Costa Rica: you open a pod, taste the sweet white fruit around the seeds, then follow them through drying, roasting and grinding by hand until you drink the cup you made. It is part of the Arenal Day Trip (from $450 per person, minimum 4) or the La Fortuna overnight.
Chocolate is a fruit. That sentence surprises almost everyone who hears it, and it is the reason this stop is worth the two hours it takes. On a working farm outside La Fortuna you will open a pod, taste the fruit around the seed — which is white, sweet and nothing whatsoever like chocolate — and then follow those seeds through drying, roasting, peeling and grinding until they become something you recognise. Nothing here is pre-made for you.
What happens on the La Fortuna chocolate tour?
You start among the trees, not at a table. The farm is small and productive, and the guide walks you through it explaining what cacao needs to grow — deep shade, constant humidity, and a particular kind of tiny fly to pollinate it, which is why cacao does not grow just anywhere.
Then a pod comes off the tree and is opened in front of you. The seeds inside are wrapped in a white pulp that you eat straight away, and it tastes like a cross between lychee and citrus. Almost nobody expects that.
From there it is the process, done by hand and by you: the dried seeds toasted over a fire, peeled, and ground on a mill until the mass turns liquid from its own fat. Then you sit down and make it into a drink, adding what you want — sugar, milk, chilli, vanilla, pepper — and taste the difference between each version.
It takes around two hours, and it ends with the cup you made.
Look at where the fruit grows
Cacao does something almost no other crop does: the pods grow straight out of the trunk and the oldest branches, not from the twigs. Once you have seen it you cannot unsee it — a tree with heavy fruit stuck to its bare stem, at eye level.
There is a reason for it. The flowers are tiny, they are pollinated by midges rather than bees, and midges work close to the ground in the shade. Everything about the plant is built around that relationship.
The pods come in reds, yellows and deep purples depending on the variety, and none of that colour tells you anything about the flavour of the chocolate — that comes later, from the fermentation.
Chocolate was a drink long before it was a bar
For most of its history chocolate was drunk, not eaten, and it was bitter. The sugar is European and recent. In Mesoamerica it was ground with chilli, vanilla and achiote, whisked to a foam, and treated as valuable enough that the beans themselves were used as money.
The seed in your hand tastes of almost nothing until it has been fermented for days and then roasted. That is where chocolate flavour actually comes from — not from the tree, but from what happens to the seed afterwards. It is a fermented food, like coffee, wine or cheese.
Knowing that changes how the tasting works at the end. You are not comparing sweets. You are tasting what each addition does to something that was already complete.
Included in the day trip
Hanging bridges, sloths and a cacao farm in one long day from the coast, with lunch.
From $450 per person · private tour · minimum 4
Available on the overnight
Stay a night or two in La Fortuna and build your own days around this and everything else.
From $800 per person · one night
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a demonstration, or do we actually do it?
You do it. The pod is opened in front of you, you toast and peel and grind, and the drink at the end is the one you made. Watching someone else do it is a different and much shorter experience, and it is not this one.
Is it good for children?
It is the part of the day most children remember. There is fruit to eat, a mill to turn, and chocolate at the end. It is also the shortest of the three stops, which helps.
We do not eat sugar or dairy. Is there anything for us?
Yes, and it may be the better version. The drink is made from pure ground cacao and you decide what goes in it — you can taste it exactly as it was drunk for centuries, with nothing added but water and spice.
How long does it take?
Around two hours, including the walk through the trees at the start.
Will it rain on us?
Possibly, and it does not matter. Most of the process happens under a roof. The walk through the farm is the only part in the open, and it is short.
Can we buy chocolate to take home?
Yes. The farm sells what it makes, and it is not the same thing as the chocolate in the airport shop. If you want to take some back, tell your guide during the tour rather than at the end, so it is ready when you leave.
When do we have to cancel by?
Seventy-two hours before your tour begins, counted from the start time and not the day. Cancel before that and your deposit comes back in full.
Book direct with the operator
- We run these tours ourselves. No middleman, no reseller.
- Private to your group — minimum four guests for this experience, no strangers in your van.
- The price you see is the price you pay: taxes and door-to-door pickup included.
Taste it where it grows
Tell us when you are here and how many of you there are, and we will tell you which of the two versions gives you the time to do this properly rather than at a trot.
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By the Guanadreams team, led by Miller Contreras — naturalist guide, born and raised in Guanacaste.