Earlier this month I had the privilege of visiting Samoa with a dear friend of mine, Fipe. Fipe is of Samoan decent and comes from a family of Samoan koko (cacao) growers. And what a wonderful invitation, to be invited to tour Samoa with her and meet the koko growers behind Living Koko!
Fipe created Living Koko with her husband Glen Reiss in 2015. Living Koko create small-batch, guilt-free cacao magic. They source their koko beans through an organisation called Savaii Koko, who provide fair and ethical trade to women domestic plot farmers who use sustainable farming methods.
Here is a little photo of me, so happy and grateful, alongside one of Fipe's koko trees 💚.
Whilst I was in Samoa I learnt so much more about koko, and I would like to share some of these learnings with you here.
Samoan Koko Learnings:
You can eat the raw fruit of koko. It is delicious and the taste reminds me a little of a mangosteen. It is a much bigger fruit than a mangosteen.
Koko takes on the flavour of neighbouring trees, so depending on where your tree is growing, even if it is the same variety of koko, each tree will have a different highlight of flavour. For example, while we were at the Ms Sunshine Organic Farm walking around Floris' koko plantation, the koko growing near a mango tree had a hint of mango flavour to it, whilst the koko growing near a cinnamon tree had hints of cinnamon flavour.
You can have more than one variety of koko growing on the same tree.
The inside of a fresh koko pod looks like this -> -> ->
A white koko bean is the most prized (versus a brown).
Once you have planted a baby koko tree it will take 4-5 years to produce fruit/koko pods.
Koko beans are fermented in a warm dry place before they are roasted. Once roasted, the koko husks are removed and the remaining koko bean is ground finely and tempered to eventually become chocolate.
There are different grades of koko.
In Samoa the national drink is Koko Samoa. The koko seeds are roasted over the fire straight from the pods, they're not fermented first (like with chocolate making). The drink is dark and bitter, more like coffee.
Reel with Samoan koko magic.
I have personally found Living Koko products to be delicious, and so helpful and healing. I drink and/or eat Living Koko most days. We start each class at Maitri Studio Brighton with either a Living Koko cacao husk tea or "Head & Heart" hot cacao. I also stock magical Living Koko goodies at Maitri Studio Brighton, so you can take some koko magic home with you and/or gift it to a loved one. (Please note it is pick-up only, no postal delivery, when purchasing cacao goodies from Maitri Studio Brighton).
Living Koko recently won gold for their Koko Duo in the 2024 Clean and Conscious Awards. I believe this award to be SO well-deserved. You can find out more about Living Koko at https://www.livingkoko.com/ (Here you can also purchase their products and have them shipped via their website.)
I hope you found my koko learnings interesting and helpful.
With love,
Freya
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