A TASTE OF GRENADA

Whether it's chocolate made from beans grown in vanilla orchards or tea infused with soursop leaves, Grenada's specialities offer up a taste of the island

- CONNOR MCGOVERN

SWEET SUCCESS

BELMONT ESTATE

Jason George takes a cocoa pod and smashes it open against the wall. "Here, try," he says. I take one of the pulp-covered beans from within and it breaks into bitter fragments in my mouth. "I know it doesn't look like it," says Jason, encouragingly, "but this is how chocolate starts."

Jason is a guide at Belmont, a historic estate on the island's northeastern slopes. It can trace its roots back to the 1600s when plantations were established during the time of French rule. Throughout its complex and, admittedly, not always glorious history, all manner of crops have been grown here, from coffee to cotton. But these days the estate focuses on cocoa- mostly the prized criollo and trinitario varieties - and nutmeg, Grenada's signature spice.

But rather than planting crops uniformly, Belmont scatters its cocoa trees among other plants, such as fruit trees and vanilla orchids. Jason explains this approach as he ushers me under the boughs of a cocoa tree. "We've found that growing cocoa trees alongside other plants can really change the flavour of the chocolate. It makes the cocoa more interesting." He gestures to the pale fruits of a nutmeg tree dangling just a few inches from a bright red cocoa pod. Both are bitter and unripe now, but who knows what the future holds. "We like to think the plants are talking to each other," says Jason.

Once harvested, the beans are fermented for around a week under banana leaves and jute sacks. They're moved every two days, which helps to distribute the warmth generated by fermentation and allows flavour to develop. "For dark chocolate, we ferment for six days," says Jason. "Any longer means more fermentation, which gives you a sweeter bean."