Mission
That every pod from Guamal gives everything it can give, and that the value of transforming it stays here.
Who we are
We started by asking what else cacao gives
We are a family from Guamal who spent years selling the bean in bulk, like everyone else. One day we stopped and looked at what was being thrown away.
From selling the bean to using the fruit
Meta harvests a great deal of cacao and transforms very little of it. Almost all of it leaves the municipality in bulk, and the value of having worked it leaves with it.
Until 2019
The bean left in bulk
It was harvested, fermented, dried and sold by the kilo to whoever came to collect it. The pulp drained away in the fermentation box and the husk was swept out of the roaster.
2020
The first wine
The pulp that went down the drain turned out to ferment on its own, and well. It took three seasons to get it dry and stable. It is the product everything started with.
2022
The chocolate and the tea
The bean brought stone-ground table chocolate. And from the husk, which until then was rubbish, came an infusion that smells of chocolate and has no caffeine.
2024
We left Guamal
The brand reached the department’s first cacao congress and the town’s fairs. Outside our own valley, mucilage wine is still the thing nobody expects.
There is no factory behind this
There are three of us, from the same household, and every bottle passes through all three pairs of hands. That puts a ceiling on how much can be made, and it is why some products only exist in season.
In the grove
Cuts the pod when it is ready, not when it is convenient. Everything else comes from there, so it is where there is least room to improvise.
In the workshop
Ferments, dries, roasts and grinds. Runs the wine batches and decides when one is ready, which is not a date but a tasting.
On the other end
Answers the WhatsApp, puts the orders together and sets up the table at the market. If you write, you are talking to someone from the house, not to a form.
What we set out to do, and how we hold to it
Vision
That cacao from Meta becomes known for what is made from it, and not only for how many tonnes are produced.
- Nothing of the fruit is thrown away. Pulp, bean and husk each have their product.
- The pulp is collected the same day as the cut, before it ferments on its own in the box.
- No preservatives and no flavourings. If something tastes of fruit it is because it has fruit in it.
- It is all made in Guamal. From the tree to the bottle, without leaving the municipality.
Beyond our own valley
We have no cabinet of awards. We have the tables we have set up and the people who tasted the wine without knowing it existed.
September 2024
1st Embrujo Llanero Cacao Congress
Four days of workshops, talks and a business round convened by the Government of Meta and the Guamal Town Council. The largest stage the brand has been on.
2024
Guamal Entrepreneurship Fair
The fair with which the Town Council brings the municipality’s business ideas out into the main square. A stall among neighbours, in the same town where everything is made.
Every weekend
Guamal farmers’ market
The square fills with stalls from the surrounding farms and we set out the cacao table, open for tasting. It is where most people have come to know the mucilage wine.
What we have been given
The places we go to, we choose ourselves. This we do not.
First place
Competition category
Awarding body · Year
Honourable mention
Competition category
Awarding body · Year
Recognition
Reason for the recognition
Awarding body · Year
Want to try it?
Write to us and we’ll tell you what there is right now, or come by the market one weekend and taste it. Both work.