The Redemption of Chocolate

I wasn’t the kid baking cookies or glued to the stove, but I come from a family of women who cook. My grandmother and her mother worked in farm kitchens, feeding workers and moving from place to place, sometimes with my mother tagging along. My mom never worked as a cook but had this incredible “sazón.” I learned that from her, not in any formal way, just by being near her.

At first, I studied cooking because it was the only thing that didn’t cost money. My family was going through a hard time, and it felt like my only option. But what began as a necessity slowly started to feel like coming home. Cooking reconnected me with my roots, the women in my family, and a deeper part of myself. 

My first experience in a professional kitchen was back in 2009. I was still a student, working events with a team of classmates. It was full of energy, a little chaotic, but in sync. Throughout my time in kitchens, the experience was generally consistent: hard work, intense heat, and long hours. Some establishments provided better working conditions and pay than others. I remember one restaurant where I worked one shift of 14 hours. They didn’t allow us to eat in the restaurant or provide a staff meal. That was an eye-opener. It made me realize how much effort we put into creating happiness for customers while the staff in the back worked under entirely different conditions. That was one of my last experiences in restaurants. 

I worked in pastry for nearly ten years. Then, I moved to Mexico City, hoping to learn more and to push my boundaries. But life had other plans. I ended up back in Colombia, lost and uncertain. I started baking at home, delivering pastries, and trying to figure out what was next. One of those deliveries took me to a former colleague who happened to be working with locally made chocolate. They needed help. I didn’t know it then, but that visit changed everything. They were making chocolate from the bean to bar. I had never imagined chocolate outside the scope of a big industry. But the moment I started working with cacao in its raw form, I felt something shift. It was like all the pieces of my life- gastronomy, storytelling, and purpose- suddenly clicked. 

Cacao trees had always been around the house where I grew up, yet it never occurred to me that this fruit, which surrounded my childhood, was the same one processed into the chocolate bars I saw in supermarkets. I began to understand just how deeply the system had erased that connection.

I never formally studied chocolate making. There weren’t many places to learn how to process chocolate from the bean at the time, and honestly, even now. It’s an industry dominated by engineers and massive machinery. But I had the background and an intuitive sensitivity to flavor. I could translate the tasting notes of a cacao bean the way a winemaker might describe grapes. Chocolate was different. But even there, I ran into barriers: misinformation, industry secrecy, and colonial systems that exploit cacao growers while celebrating chocolatiers in the Global North. Cacao is farmed in the tropics, but the financial and cultural value is captured elsewhere. Culinary schools barely scratch the surface. They teach milk or dark percentages but not variety, terroir, or the hands that grow it.

In 2019, I went to Europe for the first time to attend the Salon du Chocolat. That trip marked me. On the second day, I met Frank Homann, founder of Xoco Gourmet. He had spent 14 years planting single-variety cacao in Central America, not for volume, but for flavor. He talked about fermentation like it was jazz. He talked about disrupting the system and creating direct trade relationships with farmers. I knew instantly that I wanted in.

Now, I work with Frank and the Xoco team. I’ve spent years developing a roasting method specifically for single-variety cacao. Most machines are built for blends. They burn the subtleties right out of the bean. I wanted to protect the cacao’s identity, not flatten it. I worked with engineers to build a program to preserve the true flavor—roasting not by tradition but by logic, intuition, and respect.

The Mayan Red was the hardest. It’s a rare variety found near old Mayan settlements in Honduras. It has high acidity and notes of red fruit and wood. My first full recipe was a 100% bar. There was no sugar, just flavor. People told me it couldn’t be done and that it would never sell, but I made it anyway.

My philosophy is simple: teach everything you know, empower people, and share knowledge freely. There’s no room for ego in chocolate, which has already been taken from too many people for too long.

What I love most about food is its power to connect. We can change lives if we start paying attention to where ingredients come from, who grows them, and how we treat the people who feed us. Chocolate is my lens, but the principle applies across gastronomy. We can create more equitable systems and bring diners into that conversation.

I hope restaurants begin to evolve—not just their menus but their ethics. I want fair pay, reasonable hours, respect for immigrants and women, and when it comes to chocolate, I want chefs to treat cacao with the same reverence they give to wine or coffee. I want them to taste the difference, ask where it came from, and know that in doing so, they’re helping rewrite the story of chocolate.