Puchero Chocolate El Castillero, Nicaragua 70%

Maker

Puchero are bean-to-bar chocolate makers and speciality coffee roasters from their extraordinary natural location; the countryside of Castilla y León, Spain. 

Puchero, started as a coffee roaster and then grew to include their passion for making chocolate. The co-founders Paloma and Marco, from Spain and Italy respectively created Puchero in 2015. Their roastery and chocolate factory is in the outskirts of Madrid. Three years later in 2018 inspired by the infinite nuances of cacao from around the world, they started making chocolate from cocoa beans that have been harvested and dried on the farm by small-scale producers.

Río San Juan or the San Juan River is a 119-mile-long river that flows east out of Lake Nicaragua, into the Caribbean Sea. A large section of the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica runs on the southern bank of the river, though both countries have signed a treaty assigning the body of water to Nicaraguan territory. El Castillo, a village along the river, is famous for its colonial-era fort and small chocolate factory, which uses cacao from a nearby award-winning cooperative.