Sometimes travel means taking the love for food and chocolate abroad on your next trip. Or in the meantime, we can take you on a virtual chocolate tour to Quito, from the comfort of your home.

Ecuador is home to the world’s finest cacao variety, known as Arriba Nacional. Only 5 percent of all cacao beans grown in the world are classified as gourmet beans, or ‘fine aroma’ cacao. About 65 percent of this fine flavor cacao is cultivated in Ecuador. It is a unique variety that has a fruity flavor and is used as raw material to produce high-quality chocolates; highlighting those that evoke plums, raisins, blackberries, citrus, nuts, caramel, honey, malt, cane, almonds, peanuts, jasmine flowers and violets, among other exotic flavors.

Quito is known as the chocolate capital, a paradise for chocolate lovers and “sweet adventures” to taste aromatic and delicious delicacies, whether it is a walking tour in Quito or a visit to a cacao farm and tasting in the surrounding countryside.

There’s no better place to start your experience than Pacari, considered the best chocolate in the world, 100 percent natural, organic and top-quality product.

The Pacari experience begins with a trip to Archidona in the Napo province, an Amazonian town located two hours and 45 minutes from Quito. There, in the community of Santa Rita, you can learn about the process of planting and harvesting Cacao Arriba. You will witness each organic cocoa pepa go through a careful fermentation and drying process.

For those who prefer to stay in the cosmopolitan area of Quito, Pacari also offers a chocolate tasting in its "House of Experiences". The tasting consists of pure chocolate bars and others that contain flavors from Ecuador, while going through the history of cacao in Ecuador.

Yumbos Chocolate, a themed shop located in the Historic Center, in front of the heritage Church of San Francisco, addresses the elaboration of artisan chocolate, fermentation processes, grain drying, refining and tempering.

ChezTiff, located on the colonial street of La Ronda, also in the Historic Center, is a small chocolate shop that produces high-quality craft chocolate, of unique and unrepeatable flavor; handmade, with patience and care in every detail.

República del Cacao’s Chocolate Lab is a place where Ecuadorian chocolate is respected and admired. The objective of this center is to develop the knowledge about chocolate making and fine pastry. Through this concept, a lot of tourists, fine chocolate lovers, gastronomy students and professional chefs have crossed its doors in order to receive workshops on this noble art and expand the sweet world with their creations and new ideas.

The chocolate capital opens to the world, full of flavor, sweetness and sensuality, and on this journey of sensations, travelers will meet, and take with them, a rich story that tells about the cultivation of cocoa in Ecuador. A story dating back more than 5,300 years and that evolved into the cocoa age of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, until the 21st century, in which Ecuador continues to consolidate as a chocolate power.

Quito awaits you to taste the story of cacao and let your story begin in Quito.

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