One Cacao, Many Expressions: What It Means to Know the Farmer Who Grew Your Chocolate
Every time I visit a cacao farm, I'm reminded how much happens long before I roast a single bean.
Most recently, I was in Far North Queensland, standing among Derek's cacao trees. Pods grow directly from the trunk and branches, an odd and rather beautiful sight once you've seen it. On a single tree, some were still green and weeks from ready, others turning gold, a few nearly ready to cut. Derek walked ahead of me, pointing out which ones he'd harvest that week and why.
It's easy, from a workshop in Sydney, to forget that chocolate begins as fruit growing on a tree in the tropics. It's much harder to forget once you've stood beside it. And here's the surprise for most people: yes, cacao grows in Australia.
Why Australian cacao is rare
Cacao needs a genuinely tropical climate, with heat, humidity and rainfall through much of the year. That narrows the map considerably. Most of the world's cacao is grown far from Australia, with major production concentrated in West Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Ecuador, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Australia's suitable growing conditions exist only in small pockets of the tropical north, and the number of growers working there is tiny by comparison.
Australian-grown cacao isn't rare because someone decided to make it exclusive. It's rare because very little of it exists. That's a meaningful distinction. It means sourcing it can depend on relationships, rather than simply placing a purchase order.
Meet Derek
I've been buying Derek's cacao for some time now, and what began as a supplier relationship has grown into a genuine one. When I visit, we talk about the season, the trees, what the weather has done to this year's crop, and how fermentation has progressed in the boxes out the back. He knows his farm the way I know my workshop, through the small details rather than the broad strokes.
That matters more than it might sound. It's one thing to say, "I buy cacao from Derek." It's another to know that the person standing beside me is making decisions about when to harvest, how long to ferment and how to dry the beans, decisions that will directly influence what ends up on my roasting bench months later.
That connection with growers is something I value wherever I can build it. I've spent time with Kun Boom on his cacao farm in Thailand, brought a small quantity of his cacao back to Sydney to work with, and I hope to visit the farmers who grow my cacao in the Philippines in the future. For a small chocolate maker, being able to stand where the cacao grows and listen to the people who know those trees intimately changes the relationship you have with the ingredient.
The chocolate maker's job starts later than you'd think
One of the most interesting things about bean-to-bar chocolate is how much of the final character is already taking shape before the beans ever reach me. Genetics, soil, climate, ripeness at harvest, fermentation and drying all influence what's inside the bean long before I open a bag. By the time Derek's cacao arrives in Sydney, he has already made a long series of decisions that determine what I have to work with.
My job begins after his. A chocolate maker doesn't create flavour from nothing. My role is to recognise what's already there, preserve what deserves preserving, and decide how best to interpret it.
From Far North Queensland to my workshop
The beans arrive fermented and dried, still carrying a rough, earthy aroma that bears little resemblance to finished chocolate. Roasting is my first real intervention. It isn't one formula applied to every batch. Each origin, and sometimes each harvest, asks for its own treatment. The goal is to develop flavour, manage acidity and bring forward the characteristics I want to preserve in the finished chocolate. Derek's cacao has its own roast profile, adjusted according to the character of each batch.
After roasting comes cracking and winnowing. The brittle outer husk is separated from the inner cacao, leaving the nib behind. Those nibs are the part that will eventually become chocolate.
One cacao, many expressions
This is where it becomes particularly interesting. Derek's cacao forms the foundation of all four chocolates in my Australian range: Australia Pure Origin, Australia Milk, Australia Wattleseed and Australia Lemon Myrtle. The same cacao can therefore take four quite different paths.
At its simplest, Australia Pure Origin lets the cacao stand entirely on its own, allowing the character of the Australian-grown bean to speak without another flavour beside it. Australia Milk takes the same cacao in a softer direction, paired with Tasmanian oat milk to create a creamy expression without dairy.
Then there are the two native Australian expressions. Australia Lemon Myrtle brings brightness and a clear citrus lift. I've worked to let the lemon myrtle complement the cacao rather than sit over the top of it. The intention is balance, not decoration. That expression has since received Gold at the Perth Royal Show in 2026, following Bronze at the San Francisco Chocolate Salon Awards in 2025.
Australia Wattleseed takes the same cacao somewhere quite different. Roasted wattleseed brings notes reminiscent of coffee, toasted nuts and biscuits, sitting naturally beside the deeper character of dark chocolate. Where Lemon Myrtle lifts, Wattleseed deepens.
The origin provides the voice. My role is deciding how best to let that voice speak.
What direct sourcing actually gives me
I don't want to make sweeping claims about ethics that I can't personally substantiate across every link of a supply chain. What I can speak about is what a direct relationship with a grower gives me. I know where this cacao came from. I know who grew it. I can talk directly with Derek about the season and the crop. I have a clearer sense of how agricultural variation affects what eventually arrives in my workshop. And I feel a different kind of responsibility when I'm working with something another person has spent months producing.
When you know the person who grew the cacao, wasting the potential of the bean feels very different.
Back to the orchard
It began under cacao trees in Far North Queensland. From there, the beans travelled to Sydney, were roasted, cracked and winnowed, ready for whatever comes next. Some may become Pure Origin. Some may become Milk. Some may become Wattleseed. Some may become Lemon Myrtle. And some, one day, may become an expression that doesn't exist yet.
Bean-to-bar doesn't begin when a bean enters my roaster. It begins much earlier, with a tree, a harvest and the person who grew it.
