Terreiro Velho grows premium cocoa that produce less but deliver more flavour to the final product.
The Terreiro Velho Plantation was founded in 1889 and was the first in the entire archipelago to implement the cocoa crop. José Ferreira Gomes brought the plant from from Bahía in Brazil’s north-east to Príncipe island around the year 1820, initially as an ornamental plant. The culture thrived on the fertile ground and made the islands of Sao Tome and Principe the largest cocoa producer in the world. It was later disseminated from São Tomé and Príncipe to Nigeria and Ghana.
Until 1975 this plantation was privately owned by the portuguese company Sociedade de Agricultura de São Tomé e Príncipe, Lda, headquartered in Lisbon. After that, Terreiro Velho State was nationalized and became part of the state-owned company Empresa Agropecuária Porto Real untill 1990s when the concession was took over by Companhia dos Cafés Seleccionados Lda of the Italian agronomist Claudio Corallo.
Terreiro Velho still cultivates the same species of cocoa that came from the first plants imported from Brazil, called Forastero Amelonado. They are not very productive plants but deliver more flavor to the final product.
Be sure to spend some time visiting this unic plantation and the famous Claudio Corallo a man who someone call "The chocolate king of São Tomé" and taste some of the finest dark chocolate in the world. Learn about Claudio’s unique chocolate making process, starting with the cacao trees on his farms on the islands of São Tomé and Principé. Get a healthy dose of antioxidants while sampling his cacao beans and tasting his dark chocolate.
