On the banks of the River Acará in the Brazilian Amazon, about 50km (31 miles) south of the city of Belém, the rich smell of melted chocolate wafts out from a boatyard turned small factory. “We make magic here,” says Diana Gemaque, 33, a member of the Cacao Guardians chocolate cooperative in the riverside community of Acará-Açu.
In 2021, Gemaque and several other women from her community were invited to take part in a chocolate-making workshop organised by the Amazonian chocolatier César De Mendes. Inspired by the experience, eight of them got together to form the Cacao Guardians. What began as an experiment in someone’s kitchen is now a registered business with an artisanal factory that produces 130kg of chocolate a month.
