Cuba: Finca Duaba & Che Guevara Chocolate Factory
Baracoa and the surrounding countrywide are known in Cuba for the cocoa plantations and the chocolate they produce here (hopefully with cocoa prices soaring this year some of the money will make it to Cuba). Closer to the town, there is also the Che Guevara Chocolate Factory. You can tour the finca plantation and see cocoa tree and sample the cocoa powder, drink hot chocolate, and taste the dark chocolate bars. The factory is not open for tours, probably so that visiting foreign capitalists don’t steel the secret of communist chocolate making. The chocolate was actually quite good. The cocoa has been first planted here in 1540, as the soils and elevation provide optimal conditions for cocoa tree, and the area had experience a coca boom in 1770s. Most of the chocolate produced here is exported to Europe, Switzerland actually.
