The Maison du Cacao in Pointe-Noire

Last month, at the same time as my brother, who currently lives on the neighboring island of Martinique, my parents visited us in Guadeloupe. You’d think we had some family connection with the islands, right? Anyway, we took advantage of the three days to go for a walk with them. Our destination was the leeward coast, the commune of Pointe Noire, and in particular the Maison du Cacao.

It’s a place we’d heard a lot of good things about recently. I wanted to walk around with my family and introduce my parents (and us) to Guadeloupe. By the way, the Cascade du Paradis, in the commune of Vieux-Habitants, is a great place to hike if you want to discover a beautiful spot.

So here we are, off to discover this beautiful west coast that we love so much compared to the east coast of Basse-Terre. I won’t go on for pages about this little visit, but rather give you my opinion.

If you like the idea, you can go for brunch at Habitation l’Oiseau, in Vieux-Habitants, in a lovely place!

Living a bit “at the end of the world” in Guadeloupe (sort of!), we drove up the west coast to Pointe Noire and the famous Maison du Cacao for about 1 hour. I’ll tell you more about it at the end of the article, but it’s a pretty easy place to find, just a few kilometres after the ferry road on the seafront. There’s a car park in front of the building at the entrance. We’re still in the middle of the covid season as I write this, so it’s not very busy. However, I have a feeling that the place will be full in the peak season. According to their website, you are strongly advised to book a visit.

We arrived (this time) without having booked anything. There weren’t many of us. We discovered this very friendly little place after paying the entrance fee, which included a visit to the Maison du Cacao garden (which we did on our own) and, above all, the tasting and presentation of how cocoa is processed. If I’ve understood correctly, there are visits every 30 minutes or an hour. Depending on when you arrive, you have to wait for the previous presentation to finish. So we’ve got 10 minutes to wander around the garden while we wait for the presentation to start.

So we set off to explore the cocoa plantation (I’ve discovered the word, I confess!) for a few moments, keeping an eye on the children so they don’t tear off everything they can get their hands on. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered. It’s a nice little walk along a paved path surrounded by beautiful vegetation and, of course, cocoa trees. But the interest of the walk also lies in the fun aspect of the place. There are several panels in the garden. They contain questions and answers, riddles and some historical descriptions (history of cocoa, cacao tree, cacao powder, production of chocolate, cocoa pods).

We quickly finished visiting the Garden and sat down to listen to the cocoa presentation and the cocoa history. I’m listening with one ear. I have to deal with Téo, who’s running around and obviously can’t sit still. Have you ever asked an 18-month-old to sit on a bench and not move? Well, it doesn’t work! Seriously, the presentation was very interesting and the chocolate maker who gave it explained how cocoa is processed, from the pod (the fruit of the cocoa tree) containing the seeds to the end product: raw chocolate (after chocolate sweets, hot chocolate, cocoa liquor, truffles, cacao butter etc).

If I have learnt the lesson correctly (don’t hesitate to tell me in the comments section) about How to make the production of chocolate involves the following stages:

• Growing cacao trees: obvious, but this is the first step!
• Podding: the pod is left to ripen for about 6 months, then harvested and broken to extract the cocoa seeds/beans (raw cocoa),
• Fermentation: the cocoa beans are placed in a place where they can develop the flavour of the cocoa. This stage can take between 5 and 7 days,
• Drying: the beans are exposed to the sun for 10-20 days. During this stage the beans begin to turn brown.
• Sorting: Once dry, the beans are sorted and cleaned, removing badly fermented beans and impurities. At this stage the beans are ready to be sold,
• Roasting: This is the first stage in the process of transforming the cocoa beans into chocolate. Depending on the flavour desired, the beans are roasted at between 120° and 150° to enhance their flavour. This is the key stage in ensuring the quality of the chocolate.
• Crushing: Once the cocoa beans have been roasted, they are crushed to separate the shell from the bean. The result is what is known in the trade as “grué”. These are small pieces of cocoa 2 to 3 mm in diameter.
• Grinding: the nibs are now ground to obtain the famous “cocoa paste”,
• Kneading: sugar is added to the cocoa paste (also called “cocoa mass”). The result is a homogeneous paste.
• Conching: this is another key stage. The fat is extracted by pressing with a grinding wheel. This stage can last from several hours to several days and removes the bitterness from the chocolate,
• Tempering: this stage balances the fat in the chocolate by heating and cooling it several times.
• Shaping: this is the final stage where the chocolate is shaped into the desired containers.

It’s explained in a simple, easy-to-understand way. It might have seemed a bit long-winded to me… But then comes the moment so many people have been waiting for: the tasting of different chocolate types, chocolate products, cocoa liquor, dark chocolate and milk chocolate. The lady takes us through the different stages of the chocolate making process, from the seed to the very bitter cocoa, through the different flavours of chocolate. We’re even treated to artisanal milk chocolate!

Finally, we headed back into the garden to look around the corners we didn’t have time to see. It’s a really nice, relaxing place, and if you like taking pictures, there are lots of nice little things to photograph: flowers, pods, cocoa trees, explanatory panels, epiphytic plants, etc.

You spend a good half hour in this little garden of the Maison du cacao, and it’s quite nice.

In the end, despite what I might have read afterwards, I really enjoyed the visit. It’s a great way to spend an hour in a beautiful setting, and you learn a lot.

At the end of the tour, you can also pop into the little shop to buy some delicacies. You’ll find all sorts of things here, including rocher, chilli chocolate (excellent), cinnamon, coffee shavings, ginger, chocolate liquor with high chocolate quality. In short, you’re bound to find what you’re looking for here!

If you’re looking for another great place to visit when you explore Guadeloupe, check out our article on the Jardin de Valombreuse.

As in every article, I’ll take the liberty of telling you a little about what there is to see and do in the area. As I’ve only been here for 3 months at the time of writing, I obviously haven’t had time to visit everything. But in the surroundings there are:

• The Fety vanilla plantation,
• The Beauséjour coffee plantation,
• The Saut d’Acomat waterfall,
• Diving in the Cousteau reserve,
• The Orchid Park (where you can sleep/get a massage and discover a 2,000 m2 garden),
• Rivière Caillou: little known to tourists, but great for nature and waterfall lovers!
• The discovery of the Rêve de sable boutique (a former arénophile, I loved it),
  Anse Caraïbes beach: a beautiful beach with a carbet where you can relax and sunbathe. You can also go diving there.

You should also know that the Maison du Cacao has another place, Gwakako, where you can make your own chocolate bar from the raw materials. Apparently it’s a really fun experience. I didn’t have time to try it. But it would be worth going back one day.

As usual, I’ve listed all the practical things you need to know for this visit.

Just a few things worth knowing. To make sure this article is up to date, check their website for any changes:

• Adults: €10
• Children: €5 (free for children under 5)
• Group rate: 10 people or more
• Visits Monday to Saturday from 9.30 to 13.30 (last visit at 12.00) and from 14.30 to 17.00 (last visit at 15.45).
• Museum closed on Sundays
• Telephone number: 05.90.98.25.23 (booking recommended)

I think that visiting the Maison du Cacao is worthwhile and the price seems reasonable.

I’ve said this many times before, but of course the first thing you need to consider is flying from France to Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe’s only international airport. If you’re flexible with your holiday dates, it’s certainly possible to find cheap flights from Paris, in the region of €350 to €400 return. You can also find good prices from the provinces. Here are the best prices from the main French cities for holidays in Guadeloupe. For French people living abroad, it’s also possible to get to Guadeloupe cheaply, especially from Canada (Montreal) and the United States (New York). To find out more, read our full article on how to get to Guadeloupe.

Once you’re here, you’ll need to hire a car to get around during your stay in Guadeloupe.

Getting to Guadeloupe depends on where you’re coming from. We went from Vieux-Fort, so it’s a long way. If you’re coming from Grande-Terre, the easiest way is to take the Route des Mamelles, the famous ferry that crosses the island from east to west (or vice versa, it all depends, haha!). Here’s an itinerary if you’re coming from Grande-Terre. Allow 45 minutes to 1 hour from the airport. If you’re coming from the south of Basse-Terre, it’s impossible to get lost – there’s only one road up the west coast of the island. Here’s the route from Saint-Claude.

As I often say, don’t hesitate to download the MapsMe application to get all the maps of Guadeloupe offline on your smartphone. It’s handy and very detailed.

Of course, there’s an embarrassment of riches to choose from when it comes to accommodation in the area, to suit all tastes and budgets. My picks are 3 places that I’ve had great feedback on:

• Insolite Ara Wakan / Ma cabane: spending the night in a hut on stilts is pretty cool, isn’t it?
• kazAnne: a great holiday home with a restaurant and sea views!
• Blue Kaz Caraïb: a warm welcome in an exceptional setting, you’ll feel right at home!

You can also check out all the accommodation in Pointe-Noire at this link.

And that’s the end of this little article about discovering the Maison du Cacao. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little stroll in pictures (cocoa pods, gourmet chocolate, making chocolate). Personally, I really enjoyed it. I think it’s a wonderful discovery that allows you to visit a beautiful garden and to learn more about how to make chocolate, the whole process of the transformation of cocoa, the raw cacao, the cocoa trees, cacao beans, types of chocolate and chocolate manufacturers. They produce organic chocolate. In my opinion, you get what you pay for. PS: I have no reason to lie to you! If I hadn’t found the place interesting, I wouldn’t have written this article.

In the meantime, to continue discovering the island of Guadeloupe, I invite you to go hiking on the Sentier de la Grande Pointe, in the commune of Trois-Rivières. Right next door, you can visit the Guadeloupe Zoo, a lovely 2-hour walk with children!

See you soon for a new article.

Written by Sylvain PONS

Since 2021, I've been living in the Guadeloupe archipelago with Mélanie and our two children. We are exploring these beautiful islands and discovering the treasures that we are happy to share with you!

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