This full-day tour of the La Ribereña cocoa farm and the Cacao Lanaseso chocolate factory competes in the Gastronomic Tourism category.
La El Guapo-Barlovento cocoa route, a full day in which experts visit the Hacienda de Cacao La Ribereña and the Lanaseso cocoa processing factory, is nominated for the 2023 National Tourism Award in the Gastronomic Tourism category.
This full-day tour, which leaves from the city of Caracas, has been active for more than a year. His first outing took place on June 19, 2022.
This excursion consists of a guided walk by cocoa and chocolatier specialists through the cocoa farm and the chocolate plant, which together with other residents of the region, complement with their typical food and traditional music.
La Ribereña is a Trinidadian-type cocoa plantation hacienda that has trees that are more than 100 years old that coexist with younger ones whose fruits are processed in the cocoa factory.
Cocoa powder, paste, butter, nibs and chocolates for desserts are some of the products that are made in this plant and that are sold without intermediaries to small merchants and entrepreneurs.
These walks are organized a few weekends a month, and are announced in advance on the Instagram account of cacao Lanaseso.
Cocoa, a product that is part of the Venezuelan culture and tradition, is gaining more and more people interested in knowing how it is produced, processed and what is around it; Not for nothing, with this precious fruit one of the most demanded foods by humanity is made, chocolate.
In the first edition of the National Tourism Award, organized in 2022, the cocoa farm San Cayetano, located in the Valles Altos de Carabobo, was nominated in the Sustainable Tourism category.
Located about 20 minutes by car from Valencia, the capital of the Carabobo state, this hacienda is located on a large piece of land where all the phases of chocolate production interact at the same time.
It has more than 8 hectares of cocoa cultivation, a drying yard and a laboratory where the seeds of the cocoa pod are processed to produce the various tablets, creams and cocoa powder of the Valle Canoabo brand.
Every weekend and holiday this place is open to offer a tour of the entire process of producing chocolate.
It also has a restaurant where they offer traditional dishes and chocolate and rum tastings, as well as a store where you can buy all the cocoa-derived products made by Valle Canoabo.
Next November 26 is the date on which the winners of the National Tourism Award will be announced.
