From Venezuela to Veneto, the story of one of Italy’s finest chocolates begins like this

This is a story that begins on the other side of the world and arrives in the industrious northeast of Italy. And of a couple, Dubraska and Johonny, who, in search of a peaceful life with a view to the future, decided to leave their homeland. “We are both IT engineers, we lived in Caracas,” says Johonny. “I worked in the construction sector, Dubraska in banking.” Professions that in Venezuela’s capital guarantee a standard of living above average, secure and comfortable. “Too affluent to live there,” comments Johonny. “We were at risk of express kidnappings every day. It happened to many people we know, who lived where we had our home and belonged to the same social class. Sooner or later, it would have happened to us too: a couple of times, we narrowly escaped a quick kidnapping.”

The birth of Aroko

Married since 2012, Dubraska and Johonny did not feel comfortable starting a family in a difficult metropolis and in a country in full political, economic, and social crisis, which exploded in 2013 under Nicolás Maduro’s government but had already begun in 1999 with Hugo Chávez. “How can you bring a child into the world in these conditions?” Dubraska interjects. So, the couple decided to emigrate, and in March 2014, they arrived in Italy, Johonny’s country of origin, as he was born in Venezuela but had a Venetian father and a mother from Puglia. “In Riese Pio X, we have our family home; we always came here for holidays and to visit our grandparents,” says Johonny. “This is where we started.”

The Covid pandemic gave their lives a turning point: the global activity lockdown provided an opportunity for creative reflection and to attend an online course from the Central University of Venezuela on cocoa and chocolate science and technology. It took a year to find the right place to set up the workshop, carry out the necessary adjustments, and purchase machinery (“mostly Italian, from FBM Boscolo”) for processing cocoa beans. In June 2021, the Chacao company was born. The name of the chocolate creations is Aroko, which in the Chaima language of ancient Venezuelan indigenous populations means the feathered crown or plume, a symbol of power and honour.

The paradox of Venezuelan cocoa

The raw material also comes from Venezuela, a country where some of the world’s best “fino de aroma” cocoa is grown. Paradoxically, the particular situation the nation is experiencing protects indigenous cocoa from the hybrid varieties spreading across Latin America. “A ministerial decree prohibits the introduction and extraction of genetic material from Venezuela,” explain Dubraska and Johonny. “In Venezuela, the cultivation of CCN51 (an acronym for Colección Castro Naranjal 51, a hybrid cocoa of mediocre quality contaminating plantations in South America) is officially forbidden. Unfortunately, especially in the regions bordering Colombia and Ecuador, CCN51 is present because a myth has developed among farmers that this hybrid cocoa is resistant to disease and highly productive. Luckily, Venezuela’s climatic conditions facilitate the spread of monilia, a fungus that attacks cocoa and to which CCN51 is particularly susceptible. The campesinos who have planted it will face problems in a few years: they will have lost the genetic qualities of cocoa and will end up with sickly plants.”

Johnny with two cocoa harvesters on a Venezuelan plantation

Chuao, Porcelana, Sur del Lago, Ocumare: genetic treasures to be safeguarded

In all 12 Aroko bars—whether the 70% dark chocolates, 100% cocoa mass, milk chocolates, filled chocolates, or various flavoured ones, presented at the latest Taste in Florence—you can taste a clean and joyful chocolate, not at all bitter or astringent, with an incredible richness of aromatic notes. Be it the legendary Chuao, from the area of the homonymous village, in the Henry Pittier National Park, in the state of Aragua, and from the only local producer, the Empresa Campesina de Chuao. Or the prized Porcelana, a rare variety of ancestral Criollo cocoa, with a gentle aroma of dried fruits and white flowers, growing exclusively in Venezuela in the mountains near Lake Maracaibo. Or Ocumare, cultivated by Hacienda Las Bromelias, which preserves these genetic treasures in an isolated environment in the small village of Cumboto. And finally, Sur del Lago, an area south of Lake Maracaibo, which produces cocoa crossed with ancestral varieties such as Guasare, Porcelana, or Bocadillo, offering exceptional potential when properly processed, obtained from beans that are fermented and dried in the right way and at the right times.

The bean-to-bar process

Dubraska and Johonny’s work, sourcing directly from small and very small Venezuelan plantations, is to respect these precious cocoa varieties as much as possible through a soft roasting process adapted to the origin, “never beyond 120°C and never more than half an hour, with slow husking and stone grinding.” No soy or sunflower lecithin: “To emulsify, give creaminess and fluidity to the chocolate, we add Venezuelan cocoa butter that is neither bleached nor deodorised.”

Besides chocolate bars, Aroko’s other products include spreads made with Piedmontese IGP hazelnuts and pistachios, Drinking Chocolate (chopped chocolate to be dissolved in water or milk, made from Sur del Lago cocoa, soon also with Chuao and Porcelana), Chuao Pearls (drops for use in pastry products), and the chocolate panettone, made in collaboration with another young Treviso-based company, NanoLabo, a gelateria and bakery in Camalò, less than 30 kilometres from Riese Pio X. Aroko not only shares a product partnership with NanoLabo but also a work philosophy focused on quality.

Chacao - Aroko - Riese Pio X (TV) - via Manzoni, 2 - 329 878 0920 - arokochocolate.com