From bean to chocolate bar: a tour of Ecuadorean cocoa farms

Sweat trickles down my back as I follow Bolivar Alvarado through thick undergrowth. He has an elaborate tattoo on the inside of his left forearm and in his right hand he carries a machete. We are tramping through the Amazon rainforest, several hours north of Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, and we're on a mission.

Without warning, Alvarado stops, pulls aside a branch and raises his machete. Considering the size of the knife, it's a delicate cut and he turns to face me, his eyes crinkling as he smiles and proffers his bounty: a red and orange pod the size of a rugby ball.

Cocoa - the food of the Gods - has been grown in Ecuador since pre-Columbian times. For three generations Alvarado's family have worked this one-hectare farm in Santa Rita, Napa province, and, like most small cocoa growers in the country, he raises other crops, too, such as banana and lemon trees.

"The cocoa trees need to live with other plants for shade," says Gabriela Paredes, of the premium organic chocolate maker Pacari. "When you have big monoculture farms, people don't put love and energy into the trees, but on a family farm it's very holistic. People put household waste like vegetable skins onto the soil for compost."

Pacari has teamed up with Ecuador's most-established tour operator, Metropolitan Touring, to offer this overnight romp into the Amazon and, so far this year, Paredes has taken about 20 visitors a month on the chocolatey trip.