A chocolate dream

Saunders’ company, Exotic Caribbean Mountain Pride, a name that was given to her by her mother, has developed from a small-scale, home-kitchen idea to a regionally-known, premium cocoa- derived products business.

At her unique Chocolate Bar Caf?, where all chocolate products are made using locally-produced Trinitario cocoa beans, Saunders was beaming with pride, having acquired her dream caf? at a location she was particular in choosing.

The caf? is nestled in the scenic Santa Cruz valley at 2 Sam Boucaud Extension Road. It is a place where customers are assured an experience of TT’s culture and taste.

Saunders held up her very first product, a chocolate in the shape of a cocoa pod and said: “With this little product, it changed my life.

I actually toured the world and I have been throughout the United States and the Caribbean, Nicaragua, Panama, Chile, Argentina, China...” She explained that her innovation in agriculture was recognised by the US Government, and in particular, former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in 2015, after which Saunders was asked to address the Women Entrepreneurship of the Americas, an organisation which Clinton founded in 2012.

Saunders said when Clinton saw streets lined with craft made by rural women in Columbia for the Summit of the Americas in 2015, she wanted to support them, by getting those skilful women in rural, impoverished communities to start their own home-based industries and employ other women in the community, thus empowering themselves.

“Being bilingual and able to communicate with the South Americans during the Summit in 2015, I was chosen to represent Entrepreneurship in Rural Industries by the Clinton Foundation and to speak on women in home-based industries and their influence on the economy,” Saunders said.

“They saw what my involvement in cocoa did to the cocoa industry in TT and now there are so many other people who are involved in local chocolates and cocoa.

“This indigenous product represents our history and our culture from our ancestral days. It is natural, with no added chemicals, it has a lot of antioxidants, and it is natural healthy.” Saunders shared her story, from a child growing up on a cocoa estate in rural Tamana, and how she has been affiliated to cocoa throughout her life.

“I grew up in a family where my parents were public servants but were also landowners with a small cocoa estate. As the only girl I really didn’t have that much estate experience because my parents pushed education.

“In those early days the cocoa will always come home, the beans were always in the backyard drying, but the most I will have to do is turn the beans and close the cocoa house if rain was coming. I was also part of dancing the cocoa and that was my involvement then.” After school, Saunders got a scholarship to study agriculture in Venezuela, something that she described as an experience that was more of a cultural exchange where she enhanced her cultural knowledge.

However, when her father died, her brothers looked to her to take over the land since she was the one that studied agriculture.

“I then told them if I am doing cocoa I am going to make chocolate,” Saunders said, reasoning that nobody was making edible chocolate at that time because it was not profitable.

As a graduate in agricultural management from United World College in Venezuela, Saunders taught herself from scratch about the fine art of chocolate making.

By visiting the parts of Trinidad where traditionally cocoa has been grown and processed to cocoa beverages for centuries, she engaged with the old folks, extracting the almost forgotten way of making “cocoa-tea”, especially from the older women who provided her with necessary knowledge and recipes for making the healthy, delicious drinks.

Later, after working closely with research institutions including the University of the West Indies and the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (Cariri), she diversified the range of drinking chocolate products by adding flavours such as ginger, orange, mint, lemon grass and chili, herbs such as bay leaf and nutmeg, as well as rum for the chocolate liquor.

She started off in very small batches, making the cocoa tea at home and selling it to neighbours and souvenir shops in the region.

After a couple of months, Saunders started selling her products to the TT airports.

The business grew by word of mouth and the company was becoming increasingly recognised.

In 2007 Saunders was entrusted with the handling of the family cocoa estate up to the present.

“This is why ten years later, this is so emotional for me now.

Though there were challenges every step of the way, but converting cocoa to chocolate was a fascinating experience to me.

“Now I am doing white chocolate, milk chocolate but my goal was to have a place where people can enjoy my products and the culture of cocoa. So this dream I had was to get this caf? on the way to Maracas Beach and as a tourism thing.” In 2016 Saunders acquired the Santa Cruz property and began working on her dream. She said her design of the building was aimed at making it as natural as possible, not too commercial, not too modern, but classy as her chocolates’ classy finish.

Then to make it real she brought in the cocoa house complete with beans and movable roof.

At the Chocolate Bar Caf? breakfast, lunch and dinner are served.

The hot drinks menu offers original cocoa tea, mocha, non-diary chocolate, hot chocolate supreme, almond chocolate, americano and espresso, while the cold drinks include cocoa-mania (mint and coconut), mocha (coffee) very berry (strawberry) and chocorange (orange).

The hot cocoa is served in enamel cups.

For breakfast customers can get fried or coconut bake with local delights, and during the day, pancakes, bagels, omelettes, paninis, salads, burgers, buffalo wings and more.

Also on sale are a number of Saunders’ chocolate products including a four-piece box that is 60 per cent dark chocolates with a local flavour, since fudge, sugar cake and fruits for black cake are added for that Caribbean or Trini flavour, while the truffles come in different shapes.

The caf? is a beehive of activity on weekends, public holidays and for breakfast.

Saunders’ daughter Astrid, a business graduate who manages the caf? said she is her mother’s understudy and sees herself as part of a team comprising her other sister Milagro working together to keep the wheels turning.

“Mom is production, my sister – social media and marketing, and me to project the goals of the company to the shareholders, but our main goal is to keep the business family- oriented.” The elder Saunders said her mission now is to employ and support single women and their children in the community.

Currently she has six part-time employees and four others when the need arises.

Asked how she feels about her achievement, she responded: “I feel proud that I was able to accomplish my dream and that people can appreciate the history and the passion that went into the project