Cocoa beans

Dominican Republic Zorzal Direct trade Organic 2025

Origin: Dominican Republic
Region: Reserva Zorzal
Crop: 2025
Type: Hispanola - Trinatario
Certs: Certified Organic and Direct Trade

Year in, year out it is incredible how consistent Zorzal is Every year I don't think it can get any better and I've yet to not be surprised when I fall in love with it all over again because it is better than I remembered.

The aroma is fresh cherries with a low and delicate spice note with solid chocolate covering it all. The fist impression of the chocolate is chocolate, pure and simple. Everything about the profile is soft and supple. I bit unlike previous years there are a couple different nuts that jump out at me, Macadamia and pine-nut in particular. The bitterness (paper thin walnut skin) has a perfect counterpoint to the caramel sweetness and as always, the astringency is very low. The acidity is restrained so it is not a bright fruit note but more a deep, basal rumble and lends a great lusciousness. Where last year was cherry, this year is again the year of the cherry. Cherry preserves. Cherry leather. Dried cherries. Candied cherries. Overall it is well rounded and so easy to eat.

If you peruse the archives you will quickly notice that the next two paragraphs I stole from past me. I had all the tasting notes in place and was starting to compose and saw it and it was just too correct to re-write. Don't fix what isn't broken. There you go.

As you eat more you'll notice how supple the the flavor is, putting one in mind of cashews and macadamia nuts. It is more a gestalt impression rather than flavor. Likewise I get impressions of soft base note leather. The caramel sweetness perfectly accentuates but does not overpower the rest of the flavors.

As always the chocolate is strong and bold and alluring. This is clean and has a great clarity of flavor. The mouth feel is unsurprisingly full. It is a great chocolate for beginners and seasoned chocolate makers alike.

This is a versatile bean. Don't be afraid to experiment. It takes well to a variety of roast techniques and levels.

Profile Drum Roasting: The roast profile for my evaluation was 14:50/17:05/22:05 @ 257 F. Roasts taken to 245-250 will have fewer caramel notes but may lack chocolate notes and really are not to my tastes. 250-255 F brings out the chocolate. 260-265 really allows this bean to sing. There is fruit enough to carry through whatever you do.

I personally like this bean roasted a touch heavier than many. In general, try giving this bean an extra 2-3 minutes roasting at a slightly hotter (10-15 F) temperature than you normally would for many beans and see what you think. I wait until I hear a few beans popping, and still give it a 2-3 minutes.

Behmor: P1 for 18-19 minutes with 2 lb will be just fine. Go by the aroma. When it turns sharper near the end of the count down, you are done. If it isn't there yet, add a bit more time waiting for the turn of aroma. Due to the cold start of the the Behmor, you can just set it on the 1 lb setting with 2.5 lb of cocoa and go. When you begin getting aromatic notes, somewhere around 4 minutes left (14 minutes elapsed of the 18 minute start) drop the power to P4 (75% power) and continue roasting for about another 6-8 minutes, waiting for the aroma to either decrease or get sharp. This is all of course if you don't have a thermocouple in the beans (Modifying your Behmor) If you have that you can follow the profiles above.

Oven Roasting: You will need an IR thermometer. Roast 2 lb of beans. Preheat your over to 325 F. Place your cocoa beans in a single layer on a baking sheet and into the oven. Stir the beans at 5 minutes and check the temperature. Continue roasting until the surface temperature reads 205-215 F (it may well vary across the beans). At that point, turn your oven down 10-15 F above your target EOR, in this case 260 + ~15 = 275 and continue to roast, stirring every 5 minutes until approximately 260 F. Again, there will be variation but the beauty of this method is having turned the oven down it is difficult to over roast. The important part here is to get good momentum going in a hot oven and then basically coasting to finish. You may not get much chocolate or brownie aroma with this one.

Dominican Republic Zorzal Direct trade Organic

This is a cocoa bean you can feel really good about.

First, it makes wonderful chocolate. Fine bean-to-bar makers like Blue Bandana, Hummingbird, Dandelion Chocolate, Raaka, Parliament, Cacao Sante Fe, and ChocoSol, make signature bars out of it.

Second it’s direct trade. We buy it directly from Zorzal Cacao with no middlemen. Charles Kerchner is a consulting forester who worked in the DR in the Peace Corps. He fell in love with the landscape, and at the time also fell in love with cocoa (he was a Chocolate Alchemy customer back in our early days). Working with partners and landowners in the DR, they formed a team that initiated the first private reserve in the Dominican Republic, as part of the National Protected Area System. Reserva Zorzal has become a model for private landowners to participate in landscape-level conservation.

Third it’s organic. Zorzal Cacao has a story that goes well beyond just being organic and direct trade. Reserva Zorzal has set aside 70% of its 1,019 acres as “forever wild”, devoted to the wintering grounds of Bicknell’s thrush, which of course benefits biodiversity and many other species. This rare and threatened bird breeds on remote mountaintops in the Northeastern United States. Seeing or hearing one is a rare treat even for experienced birders, and its habitat in dense hemlock forests makes even getting the chance of seeing one or hearing its nasal trill the thrill of a lifetime. It winters in the DR, where it is called the Zorzal de Bicknells, in the dense cloud forest, and because its habitat is shrinking both in its wintering grounds and breeding grounds, cooperative efforts between conservation organizations in the United States and the DR are forging real progress in maintaining populations of this rare songbird.

About Dominican Republic Cacao

The heart of Dominican cacao lies in the green, rain-soaked Cibao valley of the northeast, especially Duarte Province around San Francisco de Macorís. Roughly 60 % of the country’s beans come from this zone, where smallholders intercrop Trinitario and Nacional trees under citrus and avocado shade. Fermentaries such as Öko Caribe centralize post-harvest work for hundreds of farmers, turning the region’s balanced, nut-and-fruit–forward beans into some of the craft-chocolate world’s favorite “Hispaniola” lots. The fertile volcanic soils, generous rainfall and two harvest peaks (March-July and October-February) make Cibao the engine of the DR’s status as the world’s largest exporter of organic cacao. cacaoteca.com raakachocolate.com

North of Cibao, cacao creeps toward the Atlantic in María Trinidad Sánchez, Hermanas Mirabal and Puerto Plata. Here, hillside farms overlook warm sea breezes, giving beans brighter tropical-fruit notes. Community co-ops have spun the crop into agrotourism: visitors trace El Sendero del Cacao near San Francisco, stir their own chocolate at “Chocolate Mountain” in Altamira, or hike the “Chocolate Jungle” outside Salcedo. These routes spotlight how coastal humidity and mountain mist shape micro-terroirs—think banana, ripe citrus and faint floral highs—while also keeping small farmer collectives visible in the value chain. GoDominicanRepublic.com

Traditionally coffee country, the far-southwest—Barahona, Pedernales and neighboring San Cristóbal—has become cocoa’s newest frontier. Since 2023 the government’s “Tamo en Cacao” plan has financed nurseries, fermentation centers and the distribution of more than 150 000 seedlings, aiming to diversify income and anchor fragile mountain watersheds. Early plantings already feed local co-operatives such as COOPAMUPA and COOPASURO, and the warmer, drier climate is expected to yield beans with deeper cocoa, raisin and brown-sugar notes that complement the fruit-driven cacao of the north. As these southern blocks mature, they will broaden the Dominican Republic’s flavor map—and reinforce its reputation for high-quality, ethically grown, organic cacao.