Rosemary Parkinson, Contributor

Left: Sommelier Duane Dove. Right: Cocoa riping on the tree .... photos by Rosemary Parkinson

The cocoa or cacao tree is indigenous to Central and South America. Cultivated by the Mayas, Aztecs and Incas, considered of a divine origin, called Xocoatl or Food of the gods, the natives drank the stimulating drink brewed from the beans using the latter as money.

The botanical name for cocoa is Theobroma cacao - Theobroma coming from the ancient Greek word for 'god' and 'food'. Spanish explorers took cocoa beans to Spain, roasting and mixing it with sugar and vanilla, creating an expensive beverage popular throughout Europe among the upper classes. Cocoa estates flourished in the Caribbean as settlers saw its potential, the cocoa bean becoming a major export.

Once cocoa was taken to Africa and the Pacific Islands, the market price dropped considerably. Cocoa was no longer viable. Estates across the Caribbean, bar a few, were left to rack and ruin; those remaining exporting the bean for blending abroad for the makers of chocolates or cocoa powder, local manufacturers getting their small share.

Local markets

Some cocoa can still be found in local markets made into balls or logs for sale - this is the real ingredient for our cocoa tea once grated, added to water, boiled with a cinnamon stick, vanilla, sometimes even a bay leaf, cloves and star anise. With milk added and our beautiful brown sugar that special cup of warmth becomes a touch of heaven. In Jamaica, the St. Mary's Co-operative sells cocoa balls beautifully packaged for local consumption.

In 1637, Pieter Blower brought sugarcane from Brazil to Barbados. First grown to produce rum, by 1624 the crystallised juice formed into sugar was reaping huge benefits. Sugar plantations spread across the Caribbean. Sugar was king. Today sugarcane is still grown; our beautiful brown muscovado-type sugar sold to Europe, refined and sold to us for general consumption. Many here would not consider having brown sugar on our tables, the white being de rigueur - most of the brown is anyhow imported from 'cheaper' sources.

Slavery didn't help to keep cocoa and sugar important. After emancipation, owners of estates refused to encourage workers to stay with the lure of sharing the possible benefits that both these commodities could give. With the plantation owner holding on to his riches and the workers not wanting slave pay, agriculture became a sorry reminder of past times. Everyone's new future was about education and 'coming to town' to become white-collar workers, doctors, lawyers and politicians. Now throughout the Caribbean we have enough of all three of the latter to fill the world while the lands is sadly uncultivated and politicians want sugar and cocoa done with.

Are we mad? The air we breathe so toxic it got we brain? We have to say no now. Why? Because our island cocoa is platinum and our island sugar is gold. Ask overseas chocolatiers who sneak around the Caribbean looking for that special cocoa bean. Ask every rum company producing the best aged rum straight from our sugar cane. Ask any health food store abroad selling one 'likkle' bag of our brown sugar for mucho dollars. Or just ask Trinidadian sommelier Duane Dove.

Wine with foods

A sommelier is a wine expert trained in wine tasting and pairing wine with foods. Duane, however, has moved over to rum, aged rum, adding a new dimension - the excitement of pairing our divine elixir with dark fine chocolate.

At the recent St. Lucia/MACO Food and Rum Festival, I hosted one of Duane's demonstrations. First he held up a cocoa pod in one hand and a sugar cane stick in another commenting: "Cocoa and sugar. Wherever you go in the Caribbean, these are growing. They are worth their weight in gold. When combined the final end products truly complement each other opening the palate to a new dimension in taste. Old rum has retaken its position on the market and the renaissance of dark chocolate has taken the market by storm, the demand for premium cocoa outweighing the supply."

Orgasmic Experience

But there was more to shock. Wih me own eyes meh see French and Italian chocolate, branded with the name of the particular island from whence the cocoa bean came from, wrapped and presented beautifully - dark artisan chocolate made from high grade island cocoa that according to Duane sells for up to 100€ a bar. During his presentation, this vibrant young man paired these different chocolates with our Caribbean premium barrel aged rum and the combination was truly an orgasmic experience.

Today, Duane is the proud owner of a cocoa estate in Tobago - a working estate combining tourism. You will soon be able to visit, walk the bean, watch the makings of that chocolate ball or log for our cocoa-tea, see how the bean is chosen and graded by experts for export to high-class chocolatiers. Agri-tourism at its best.

Duane Dove continues his work of promoting the importance of our cocoa and our sugar world-wide. It has become his raison d'etre. In Sweden, he is about to open, yes, you might have guessed it by now - a chocolate shop. I rest my case.

"It makes more sense for the island nations to turn their sugar into high-value-added rum than to sell it undervalued on a grossly protected world market."