I’ll take any opportunity to bring someone to Manoa chocolate in Kailua so we went for a “tour” and chocolate tasting. The tour is in one room, but you do move around the room! Everyone’s really there for the chocolate tasting. This reminds me all my chocolate is packed up, and I’m praying it makes it to our destination ok. I digress. I invited the officer spouses’ club gang to join and some did! We had a great tour guide.
And then we went to Goen that night for dinner, another local to Kailua favorite spot.
Manoa Chocolate Factory tour was way less a tour than it was a chocolate tasting. For $15, we were able to taste something like 15 chocolate bars. This was heaven.
She did start out by educating us on how cacao is grown, harvested, and processed to make chocolate. We were able to try the seed of the cacao pod. It was pulpy, kinda like a pomegranate seed, and inside was the “nut” that would make the chocolate. Then we also tasted the roasted “nut” that would be considered 100% dark chocolate. We could also see some of the processing through windows. They make something like 3,000 bars a day, and manually wrap them all. The tasting associates wrap when the store is quiet!
Finally we got to do our tasting.
There isn’t enough Hawaiian grown cacao to source all of their chocolate, but they have bars that are specifically only Hawaiian grown. It is amazing the difference between the flavors of the chocolate grown in Oahu vs. Maui. They don’t do anything differently in growing them, like they don’t feed the soil. It’s just how the nutrients in the ground end up making the cacao taste.
I ended up buying a few bars of chocolate to take on a trip to visit Brian’s parents in San Diego. I also learned they do subscriptions, and so if anyone is looking to get me a Christmas gift this would be it. Although please coordinate so I don’t get three boxes of subscription chocolate.
The fruit infused ones were my favorite (specifically Lilikoi, Mango, and coconut) along with the 70% Hawaiian Chocolate and Mililani. They have a rum infused one that I thought I’d like more, but I don’t. There’s some partnership with Ko’olau distillery where they use the rum for something? or sell that rum? Not a lot of online evidence.
Anyway, tour was cool, but you could easily skip it and go in just for the tasting.
Dangerous for this to be located in Kailua, for sure!
I’ve been desperately trying to find a substitution to my Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Lover’s Chocolate bar, and I might’ve found it… at quite the price. The Manoa Chocolate factory is near the market I went to and happened to open at 10am. I had some time to spare and have very little willpower against chocolate, so I stopped in quickly. I met a very nice woman who happens to be from Connecticut originally, because of course. They give tastings on a walk in basis, and tours every day at 3pm.
This is made from cacao grown in Hawaii. I couldn’t walk out without buying a couple bars… for $12 a pop. Woof! It is ABSOLUTELY delicious, though. I’ll have to continue to ration my Trader Joe’s stash and keep this in the rotation as a special treat. I also bought a chocolate macadamia nut spread, think Nutella but macadamia nut, and honestly wasn’t as much of a fan as I thought.
With low capacity and staffing shortages, tours are capped at 8 and Saturdays are booked through November. I am thinking of trying to coordinate with one of my officer spouse groups, but it’s getting complicated. Anyway, I’ll find a time to get there for an official tour and tasting.
