With Thanksgiving over, Trader Joe’s stocked their shelves with a new item: the Chocolate Passport. This best-selling holiday confection, formerly known as the Chocolate Palette, includes single-origin bars, each made from cocoa beans from Peru, Venezuela, The Dominican Republic, Ghana, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome, Tanzania and Ecuador. Ecuador is distinguished among these countries because 66% of each bar contains dark chocolate.

Chocolate’s Birthplace: Ecuador

Cocoa dates to the arrival of the Spaniards on the Pacific coasts. In 1830, Ecuador declared independence. Many wealthy families dedicated their lands to the cultivation of cocoa. The haciendas, called Grandes Cacao, were located in Vinces and other cantons of Los Ríos in Ecuador. Cocoa production doubled by 1880, and by the 1920s, tripled. But during the 1890s, Ecuador already had become the world's largest cocoa exporter. Ecuadorian chocolate is among the most exquisite in the world. The first banks of Ecuador were created thanks to the solid base of cacao, which became the national economic engine.

“Ecuador has several comparative advantages,” says Karina Amaluisa, Trade Commissioner at PRO Ecuador Trade Office in New York. “With the richness of its soil, luminosity and a constant climate, above all makes our land blessed.” Today, about 65% of the world’s cocoa production originates in Ecuador. For sustaining agro-climatic conditions necessary for the development of this crop, Ecuador is distinguished as the cocoa Silicon Valley.

Chocolate as a Way of Life

“Ecuadorian chocolate has worldwide recognition,” Amaluisa said. “Its high quality and diversity have claimed an increase in demand across the global market.”

Ecuador is ranked fourth in cocoa world production, after the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia. In Ecuador, the variety of cocoa production takes place mainly along the coast and in the Amazonian region, specifically in the provinces of Los Ríos, Guayas, Manabí and Sucumbíos. Around 600,000 Ecuadorian families benefit from the cocoa industry in Ecuador, with over 500,000 hectares of cocoa. Significantly, more than 80% of the cocoa production comes from small farmers who own between one to two hectares of fertile land. In 2015, the total income from exports in the cocoa sector reached USD $810 million, according to Nadia Rosales Avellán, Cacao Sector Specialist at PRO Ecuador. The cocoa sector is an important employment generator, said the analysis team at PRO Ecuador.

30 Brands, 2 Types

There are 30 Ecuadorian chocolate brands recognized worldwide, including Kallari, Kuná, Tavoro, Valdivian and Pacari, the latter being a three-time gold medal recipient: the International Chocolate Awards, and Oprah Winfrey’s and Michelle Obama’s top choice.

The process of creating Ecuadorian chocolate begins with the cocoa bean. Ecuador develops two types of cocoa: CCN-51 cocoa and fine aroma cocoa.

The CCN-51 cocoa, also known as “Colección Castro Naranjal #51,” has a rare red color. It is recognized for its ability to produce more chocolate than other types of cocoa do. Emailing from Prague, Czech Republic, Victor Orrico, a fifth-generation Ecuadorian cocoa farmer and representative for The Orrico Family Coffee and Cocoa Plantation, said, “The CCN-51 cocoa has a tasteless but light flavor to it.” This cocoa is ideal for industries, such as The Hershey’s Company, Mars Incorporated and Cadbury, which mass-produce chocolate with significant amounts of added sugar and vanilla.

The fine aroma cocoa, also known as “criollo” or “arriba,” has a distinctive yellow color, accompanied by unique aromas and flavors, with hints of strawberries, red fruits, wood, freshly cut grass, accompanied by an after taste of malt, curry and cardamom. “It’s simply indescribable,” Orrico said. “Just an explosion of different flavors.”

Chocolate comes in various flavors, depending on the cocoa’s provincial origin across Ecuador. A pure chocolate bar, made from cocoa harvested in the humid northern coastal region of Esmeraldas has nutty tones, with a creamy texture because the crops only receive indirect sunlight. While chocolate from the cocoa produced in the dry but luminous area of Manabi, whose soil has received the volcanic ashes of the Andes scattered by the wind, stands out for its floral sweet notes of jasmin, Orrico said.

“The fine aroma cocoa is for more exquisite and gourmet industries,” Amaluisa said. “As Ecuadorian cocoa aficionados, it is our duty to produce and be recognized for the best quality cocoa.”

Chocolate Boom

Since 2007, Ecuadorian exportations of cocoa and intermediate products to the US have enjoyed a steady growth.

Ecuador offers a variety of intermediate products of cocoa, including: nibs, cocoa liquor, cocoa cake, cocoa butter and cocoa powder. In 2013, the chocolate sector exported USD $21.8 million and a total of 1.3 thousand tons to markets in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, USA and Peru.

Ecuador is one of the largest international producers and exporters of fine aroma cocoa, with 63% market share. In 2013, the cocoa sector exported USD $433.3 million and a total of 178 thousand tons of cocoa to markets in the USA, the Netherlands, Mexico, Germany and Malaysia. Avellán said Ecuador was awarded “best floral quality cocoa” and “best geographic region cocoa” at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris, France in 2011.

By the end of 2016, researchers at the Department of Agriculture said Ecuador will be one of the main Latin American suppliers to the US, importing significant amounts of chocolate, cocoa beans, cocoa butter, cocoa powder and cocoa paste.