We started the day with a walk on the Beachwalk to Whalers Village. We had to avoid the crew pruning palm trees near our hotel.
People were enjoying the walk, the beach, the ocean, and the sky.
This afternoon, we took the Factory Experience Tour at the Maui Chocolate Factory, led by CEO Gunars Valkers, who had co-founded Biosite and developed the first visual pregnancy test and a test for congestive heart failure. Biosite got absorbed by Abbott in a hostile takeover, and Gunars took the money and moved to Maui, planning to retire. But he got interested in chocolate, and founded Maui Ku’ia Estate Chocolate, which now donates its entire net profit to local charities.
Gunars took us through the chocolate production process from farm to wrapped chocolates.
Gunars experiments with chocolate and sends the results to his Ku’ia Club members as their monthly chocolate. He’d just finished creating a chocolate from the 2024 harvest from his farm (the first since the Lahaina fire, which really stressed the trees), and it was ready to be wrapped.
We got to taste the Maui 2024 chocolate; it was excellent, and the Kuia Club members are in for a treat.
Our next stop was the chocolate storage room, which has ready-to-ship product as well as semi-processed chocolate, like the 10kg block of untempered chocolate that Gunars showed us. He said that there was a million dollars worth of chocolate (at retail) in the room! The room is kept at 60 degrees, which allows him to store the chocolate indefinitely without degradation – he also said that the best place to store chocolate at home is in your wine cellar (failing that, the refrigerator is good, but you need to let it warm up for a few minutes before eating it).
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After the tour, we had a chocolate tasting – seven five-gram pieces of chocolate. Three were chosen for us (the ones they make from pure Maui chocolate from their own farm); we had to choose the other four.
The tour included a $25 gift card for each of us; we decided not to buy any chocolate just yet because we’d have to keep it cool on the way home, which would be difficult. I’m considering joining the Kuia Club – the cards would almost pay for the first month’s shipment. :-)
As we walked back to the car, we were faced with the reality of the Lahaina fire again.
Diane and I had dinner at Mauka Makai (Land and Sea) restaurant here at the resort; we had a nice view of the ocean at sunset.
