Luisa Abram’s Quest for Wild Amazonian Cacao
Luisa Abram is a Brazilian chocolate maker whose work centers on a rare and remarkable ingredient: wild cacao from the Amazon rainforest. Her craft is built on a clear mission — to bring the flavors of this unique cacao to the world while supporting the communities that harvest it and protecting the forest that sustains it.
The wild cacao used by Luisa and her team grows naturally along remote Amazonian riverbanks. It isn’t farmed or cultivated; it’s part of the native ecosystem. The pods are collected by riverside families using traditional methods, then fermented and dried on-site with careful oversight. The resulting cacao reflects the biodiversity of each region — fruity, floral, earthy, or sharp — depending on where it’s harvested.
Since 2014, Luisa has worked to build a model that respects the raw material, the forest, and the people involved. She produces small-batch dark chocolate using only wild cacao and sugar — with no added lecithin, vanilla, or flavoring — to preserve the cacao’s natural flavor profile.
Four Rivers, Four flavors
In a remote part of the upper Amazon Basin, wild cacao grows naturally along the banks of the Purus River. The cacao is harvested by members of Cooperar, a cooperative of around 300 families who handle the entire post-harvest process, often under challenging conditions deep in the rainforest.
Luisa began working with Cooperar in 2014 with an initial purchase of just 60 kilograms of wild cacao. Since then, this collaboration grew into a long-term relationship focused on transparency, quality, and preserving the forest economy.
In 2019, Luisa began her partnership with Mario and Marcio, who are responsible for organizing the harvest of wild cacao along the Tocantins River, near the city of Mocajuba and across the many islands along its course. Today, twenty riverside families are involved in this collective effort.
Their collaboration started when Luisa worked closely with them to establish fermentation protocols for the cacao, laying the foundation for the consistent quality they’ve maintained since.
Iolanda and Francisco (known as Bico), riverside dwellers who live along the Arauaia River—a branch of the Acará—are the sole suppliers of this cacao. They source cacao from eight to ten riverside families along the Arauaia, Acará, and Guamá rivers.
Their partnership with Luisa began in 2015.
Jurua River
This cacao comes from a region very close to what geneticists agree is the plant’s center of origin: the Amazon rainforest spanning Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil. It’s also one of the most challenging areas for production, as the Juruá River Valley is frequently affected by flooding.
The first harvest of this wild cacao took place in 2018, led by brothers Osmir and Aires Andriola. The year before, they had received logistical and financial support to attend a fermentation training on the Purus River, taught by Daniel O’Doherty — one of the world’s leading cacao fermentation specialists, who traveled from Hawaii for the training.
Both the Andriola brothers and Daniel were supported by SOS Amazônia, as part of the Valores da Amazônia Project.
