Casa Cacao. Jordi Roca

The starting point is the chocolate workshop of El Celler de Can Roca. From there, Jordi Roca takes a journey through the history of chocolate that will lead him to the place of origin of cocoa in the Amazon jungle.

He travels through cocoa fields in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador to meet producers both in the interior of the jungle - Awajun communities on the Peruvian banks of the Marañon River or Arhuaco producers on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia - and in the new production areas that define some of the most prestigious references on the market. These include Piura, in northern Peru, and the plantations where the Arriba cocoa is grown in Ecuador. He learns about the nature of the so-called creole cacao, native to the Amazon rainforest, the characteristics of the crop and the way in which the cocoa cob ends up being transformed into the fermented and dry bean from which we obtain our chocolate.

With this background, Jordi Roca returns to his chocolate workshop in Girona and gives a new twist to his creative work, undertaking new creations with the new cocoas that he has collected over the course of his journey through the different countries of Latin America.

The book begins with the creative process of one of his best-known creations as the driving force behind the search for the roots of cocoa and ends with the new recipes he will show both in El Celler de Can Roca, such as the Rocambolesc ice creams, and in his new chocolate shop, which he opened in Girona in early 2018.