Ann showed us cacao from beginning to finished product. We are passionate about giving back to the local community and as a for-profit company, in conjunction with our Corporate Partners, we are privileged to use 100% of our net profits to benefit local Maui charities and non-profit community organizations. Explore an essential element of Hawaiian culture. She ran us through crushing the beans, using a fan to remove the unwanted parts, put them through a grinder to get the butter out, and prepared a delicious chocolate concoction for us to enjoy. We really enjoyed how hands on the tour was. Also intriguing is the dark chocolate made with wild cacao ODoherty harvested deep in the Amazon jungle, accessible only by canoe. Cut-off times are based on the experiences local time. The walkabout was beautiful with bi-coastal views of Maui and finished off with tasting a wide variety of chocolates and special chocolate drink mix. Highly recommend this tour! Shes very knowledgeable about the whole growing and production process and I learned a lot about one of my favorite foods!! Make sure you have plenty of room on your phone to take photos because there are so many photo ops. Theres a centerpiece that doubles as a trash can for all of the chocolate wrappers. Copyright 2022 KGO-TV. I am an action type of guy but this was fun learning about the farming and history. My favorite was the Madagascar chocolate that was creamy with citrus notes and the coffee was delicious! One way you can help, without flying all the way to Maui, is to purchase their chocolate online for your own at-home tasting! The tour lasts about 2 hours, theres never a dull moment. We never know how chocolate was made and the countries that grow it until now. Money wasnt a restriction: A biotech entrepreneur, Valkirs had sold his company for $1.7 billion in 2007, and he didnt plan on making any money off the chocolateall profits would be donated to Maui charities. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. We love, More first blossoms!!! My daughter was super excited to go to school and tell her classmates that now she knows where chocolate comes from. Another beautiful Maui sunset! This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. It does not store any personal data. The coffee was so good we ended up bringing a bag home. But it also has a lot of scientific method applied to it. Luxury and rugged nature blend on this enticing island. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. The spirit of islands infuses arts and crafts on Hawaii. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. They say their ultimate goal though is to have a negative carbon footprint. Our tour guide then transports you to our private cacao estate, nestled in the foothills of the West Maui mountains. Definitely worth making this part of your Upcountry day! Fun fact, this is the LARGEST chocolate factory in the state of Hawaii! You can book reservations for a Chocolate Tasting at MauiChocolateTour.com. Wonderful. Each party also receives a custom logo cooler bag! And we ended with a tasting of chocolates from different parts of the worldyummy! Location:Kuia Estate Chocolate FactoryAddress: 78 Ulupono St Suite 1 Suite 1, Lahaina, HI 96761Google Maps:https://g.page/maui-kuia-estate-chocolate?share. This chocolate tour and tasting is perfect for visitors with a sweet tooth, Visit Hawaiis largest working chocolate factory, and tour its cocoa estate, Learn the secrets of chocolate production and taste award-winning chocolates, This small-group tour is capped at just 10 people for a personal experience, 78 Ulupono St Suite 1, Lahaina, HI 96761, USA, Confirmation will be received at time of booking, Check-in 15 minutes prior to tour start date, This tour/activity will have a maximum of 14 travelers. What do you prefer, Our new global chocolate tasting line up! Please meet us at Ku'ia Estate Chocolate Factory 15 minutes before your tour start time. If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experiences start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded. Thats one thing that makes them unique! Its dominated by commodity producers and they dont care about quality very much. I messaged them to see if they can put us on the next tour because we were going to run late and nobody responded. The cocoa orchards were beautiful, especially when we went up the treehouse for the chocolate tasting. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. Had a great time on the Chocolate tour with Ann! More than 8,000 trees spreading across twenty-plus acres provide the raw material for this world-class chocolate. Working Farm in Progress! Our tour guide Ann was super friendly and presented an educational experience in such an intriguing and fun way. Those notes are missing in the current batch for sale, but heres hoping the next batch delivers some of the cacaos unique flavors. Free, covered parking is available. The guide was great! Its like taking all the red wine grapes grown, throwing them in one field, harvesting it and throwing it all together. They also have several infused flavors like lemongrass, calamansi, guava, and mango! This company donates 100% of proceeds to charity. This was a disappointment I would not recommend this to anyone especially since they cannot accommodate its guests. They have one that is Grown and Made in Maui and one that is Made in Maui. Tune in for Local Success Stories on PBS Hawaiis Newest Program, Home Is Here. If its canceled because the minimum isnt met, youll be offered a different date/experience or a full refund. Next time youre on Maui, you can visit the Maui Kuia Estate Chocolate factory at: While youre there pick up some chocolates, coffee, and even brownies. The youngest island is the largest and full of adventure. If you want to see and do even more, what we recommend is the Guided Cacao Farm Tour & Chocolate Tasting, which also requires a reservation. The global Cacao growing region twenty degrees north or south of the Equator, those are the places where Cacao is grown, and dried, and fermented, and then roasted! This tour is exceeded all of my expectations! We were even able to ship some home. We especially enjoy visiting National Parks, wine tasting, and taking day trips around Southern California! Lots of great information that kept even the kids engaged . In November 2019, six years after Valkirs started his cacao farm, Maui Kuia Estate finally debuted its chocolate to the public, and right now, you can get it shipped to your door. Whether you host your next event in a treehouse in the middle of a cacao farm or on an expansive open air pavilion overlooking the Pacific, Maui Chocolate Events can create an event of your dreams. Plan your big day, or get away afterward. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Do yourself a favor take a drive upcountry for a wonderful outing! Fun few hours to spend on this chocolate tour. We are Eva and JP, an age-gap couple discovering hidden gems in California one weekend getaway at a time. We really enjoyed tasting all the special types of chocolate as we were given information about each piece. What I like about chocolate is its creative. We recognize the proper use of the Hawaiian language including the okina [], a consonant, and the kahak [] or macron (e.g., in place names of Hawaii such as Lnai). Very enjoyable!! We learned all about cacao and the process of how it is grown. The factory is 100% solar powered and the 2nd largest off-grid commercial facility in Maui. Distinct instruments and sounds define music in Hawaii. Road to Hana (Hana Highway) Tours & Tickets, Nature and Wildlife Tours - Big Island of Hawaii, Kalaupapa National Historical Park Tours & Tickets, Hana Lava Tube (Ka'eleku Caverns) Tours & Tickets, Iao Valley State Monument Tours & Tickets, Ocean Vodka Organic Farm and Distillery Tours & Tickets, Hand sanitizer available to travelers and staff, Transportation vehicles regularly sanitized, Social distancing enforced throughout experience, Contactless payments for gratuities and add-ons, Paid stay-at-home policy for staff with symptoms. Q:What measures are being taken to ensure staff health & safety during Lahaina Guided Cacao Farm Tour and Chocolate Tasting? Hawaii's fourth largest island is called the Garden Island.. Im a scientist and inventor, Valkirs says. I had never really thought about, where does my chocolate come from? This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. More than 500,000 chocolates were given to guests before the pandemic shut down tourism. It was a very intimate and informative tour. Learn about Hawaiis customs and traditions. After checking in with your tour guide, we invite you to enjoy a cacao drink and take in the amazing 360-degree views from our rooftop pavilion. These restaurants and cafs hold themselves to a higher eco-standard that make deciding where to eat for ocean-minded people an easy decision. Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Kind of like how youre not supposed to wear shoes in caves that have been worn in other caves. We celebrated National Take a Hike Day (Nov. 17), with a round up of our top picks for the best hikes on the Island. There is also a second floor open-air pavilion with views of the ocean, surrounding islands, and West Maui mountains. Everyone is given a bottle of water to rinse your palette in-between tasting each piece of chocolate. We are on a mission to make travel easy and accessible for everyone. Savory Recipes that incorporate Chocolate, Private In-Home Chocolate Tastings & Recipes. what a fun afternoon for everyone in my group. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and friendly, and he made the tour very kid friendly as well. All you might want to learn & more. MAUI, Hawaii (KGO) -- No trip to Maui is complete until you take an unforgettable chocolate tour from Maui Ku'ia Estate Chocolate. Learning the process of making chocolate was interesting. The set up of the tasting was perfect. Learned a lot about chocolate. This experience requires a minimum number of travelers. Maui Kuia also holds in-person tastings in the shaded, open-air pavilion above the factory in Lahaina. Your journey begins at the Kuia Estates Chocolate Factory in Lahaina, the largest chocolate factory in the state of Hawaii.