HISTORY

Lonohana Estate Chocolate is located on the island of O‘ahu, Hawaii and is the result of two families’ dream to create a vertically integrated chocolate company here in Hawaii. By controlling the entire process, starting with our own Hawaii-grown cacao all the way through crafting small batches of world-class chocolate bars in Honolulu, we aim to share where this beloved food comes from, how it is grown and made.

We propagated our own cacao seedlings, planted our first trees in 2009, and now farm 14 acres of cacao on the North Shore of O‘ahu. We harvest the fruit, use wild fermentations and dry the beans up on the farm. Then we craft small batches of chocolate bars at our factory in Honolulu. Using traditional techniques, we have collected an array of vintage chocolate making equipment over the years to produce our chocolate.

From 2009 to 2014 we were exclusively a farming operation. It takes roughly 5 years before the trees begin to produce cacao pods and in order to make ferments optimal you need to have enough seed harvested together, so we took a plunge into the deep end with a decade-long planting regime that now includes 14 acres.

Everything starts in the orchard, and then evolves carefully at every step of the production process, so that the resulting bars are true expressions of fine Hawaiian chocolate. We have begun a journey to discover how the unique and diverse soils, weather and microclimates of Hawaii can grow world-class cacao, and to show these different characteristics through our chocolate.

For the first few years we sold exclusively over the Internet and started what has now become a very successful chocolate club, whereby we were able to balance our time in the orchard as well as in the factory, releasing bars every few months. We learned a ton over this period, both about our farm as well as our chocolate making techniques. Our club members live all over the country and we deliver a bit of Hawaii to them regularly, all while gaining critical feedback on how we can get better. Our selection of bars is continually evolving and expanding, but we hold close to our commitment to featuring both dark and milk chocolate that often will have Hawaii-flavored inclusions, such as coffee, ginger, sea salt, chili peppers, bananas, cardamom and even hibiscus.

In 2017 we opened our small retail store in SALT at Our Kaka’ako. Here we host visitors daily with free samples of many of our chocolate bars.

We are 13 years into this journey, and we are very proud of the results. We still have a lot more we want to achieve, both with our own brand, as well as helping others in Hawaii to elevate the awareness of Hawaii chocolate.