Oregon-based Moonstruck helps revive rare chocolate found in Peru

A rare variety of chocolate bean, which vanished nearly 100 years ago in South America, returns this month to cafes around Portland, Oregon.

Moonstruck Chocolate Co. has licensed the revived Pure Nacional cacao bean, recently rediscovered in Peru. The bean produced a fine chocolate enjoyed during the 19th century, but was thought lost to disease that afflicted its trees.

Now it's back, according to Portland-based Moonstruck, which plans to roll out its new chocolate in New York City today and in Portland next week, oregonlive.com reported.

"It's an intense chocolate, but low in acidity," said Julian Rose, Moonstruck's chocolatier.

"It's so refined and delicate," he said -- "full of flavor, and very floral. It feels less savage."

The bean was rediscovered almost by accident, according to Rose, growing at an elevation of 4,000 feet in a canyon in northern Peru. Testing linked it to the Pure Nacional variety, thought to be extinct.

Lost in Ecuador, Rediscovered in Peru

Originally discovered by a Swiss chocolate couverture manufacturer traveling in Ecuador in the early 1800s, Pure Nacional was prized for its unique cacao scent and fully developed flavor characteristics.

It dominated the fine chocolate couverture market before the cacao trees were decimated by diseases nearly 100 years ago. The few surviving disease-resistant and hybrid varieties never could compare in quality.

Recently, Dan Pearson & Brian Horsley of Maranon Chocolate discovered pods of white and purple cacao beans in the Maranon Canyon of northern Peru.

Told by locals that the cacao was used in couverture, samples were sent to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) genetics laboratory for DNA testing. The lab confirmed that the Pure Nacional variety, thought indigenous to Ecuador and extinct, lived on in Peru.

Fortunato No. 4 is named after the Peruvian farmer, Fortunato, on whose farm the beans were found. The number four was chosen because the fourth of 14 samples sent to the USDA was the purest expression of Pure Nacional cacao, the same cacao used to create Fortunato No. 4 chocolate.

Pure Nacional trees thrive at the highest altitudes ever recorded in the remote micro climate of the Maranon Canyon. Once harvested, the beans are transported first by foot, then by burro and motorcycle, and finally by all-terrain vehicle for quality post-harvest processing. The resulting cacao offers an unsurpassed range of delicate and rare flavor.

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Publicado: 10/1/2011