Chocolate: The Underrated Gem of Brazil

Brazil is known for its festive carnival celebrations, lively nightlife, flavorful food, and beautiful beaches that are only rivaled by its equally gorgeous people. But there’s one Brazilian gem that doesn’t always get the international recognition it so rightfully deserves: chocolate.

Brazil grows some 250,000 tons of cocoa beans every year, mostly in the northeastern state of Bahia, and is among the top ten chocolate producers in the world. Brazilians are also some of the world’s top consumers of chocolate. Can you really blame them with all that delectable chocolate so readily available?

In 2019 alone, more than 580 thousand hectares of cocoa were harvested in Brazil. With so much raw material at their fingertips, the cocoa, chocolate, and candies sector in Brazil generated a net revenue of nearly 17 billion Brazilian reals that same year.

While most of Brazil’s chocolate sales come from mass-produced confections, there’s a growing movement of smaller farms and chocolatiers that are showcasing the best that Brazilian cocoa has to offer. Their secret? Manipulating the cacao beans as little as possible.

In the very first episode of “FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II,” our host explores São Paulo—Brazil’s largest city—and makes a pit stop at Amma, one of the best chocolatiers in the area. Ernest’s friend and tour guide Flávia Liz di Paolo shows him the ropes as they sample a variety of the sweets available at the shop, including 100% organic chocolate with pink pepper.

In this episode, Ernest also shares the recipe for one of Brazil’s most popular sweets: brigadeiro. This traditional chocolate treat comes in many sizes and flavors, but for a recipe you can try at home, be sure to have your pen and paper ready to jot down some notes. Luckily, the FULL São Paulo episode of “FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II” is now available on our YouTube channel, so you can pause and rewind as much as you need to catch that recipe.  

And the São Paulo episode is just one of many that we plan on posting to YouTube. Hit that subscribe button, so you can be notified when we post the next full episode, as well as other travel content to keep your wanderlust at bay…or to spark it even more.

Let’s Fly!