Handbook of Vanilla Science and Technology

INTERVIEW WITH CYRILA CHO

Cyrila Cho is a Kek’chi Maya woman who is originally from Laguna Village, but now resides in San Felipe (population 350). Most Kek’chi women are very reserved, but Cyrila is outgoing and talkative. Possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit, she has a business grinding corn into masa for the community with her family’s electric corn grinder. For a few years now, she has also had a chocolate making business. She is aided in this endeavor by her husband and two grown children, Abelina and Juan. Abelina assists with production and Juan purchases cacao from a handful of other farmers in the village. The chocolate business is growing and more cacao is needed than Cyrila and her family currently grow. It should be noted that Juan pays a higher price for cacao than is normally paid in the area. Juan is progressively community minded and wants to expand the chocolate making business to help establish a more lucrative market for the cacao grown by local farmers.

Cho’s Chocolate uses traditional Maya methods to ferment, roast, and grind their cacao. Their products include cocoa powder, made by simply grating the dried and fermented cacao beans, baking chocolate, used locally for making a cacao beverage, and a sweetened chocolate bar. The flavoring for the chocolate bar is dependent upon what is available at any given time, but can include allspice, cloves, and vanilla. When vanilla is used, the vanilla bean is ground right along with the cacao.

Cyrila discovered Che Si’bik (the Maya word for vanilla) in the bush behind her house in San Felipe when she cleared an area for planting. She was able to recognize the vine because she recalls her parents using vanilla. “My father have a farm and he have a vanilla. Since my father and my mother raised me they use it with cacao because it smell sweet.”

The wild vanilla vines were left to grow after the area surrounding them was cleared. These plants self-pollinate and produce beans that are sun-dried for use in the chocolate bar recipe. Two different species of vanilla are used in the chocolate, V. planifolia and the beans from an unidentified vanilla vine that has a thin, narrow dark leaf.

In October 2007, Cyrila received 10 V. planifolia cuttings from MMRF to plant in her yard. As of January 11,2009, when we visited with Ms Cho, six of those vines were still alive and appeared to be thriving. They were planted, appropriately enough, in an area in which several cacao trees were also planted. In the yard, there are also about a dozen fruit trees and many small plants that are used as herbs, both for seasoning food and as traditional medicines. Cyrila tells us enthusiastically, “I like plants. By my house, I have cabbage, cucumber. In my farm I have watermelon. Right now we plant beans and corn.”

According to Cyrila, “Some of them [the women in the village] have vanilla, not all. Some of them want plant. I teach them.” As we depart, she smiles and tells us that should OVA get more plants, she would like some more to plant in her yard.