First and Only Chocolate Museum in the Philippines - Malagos Garden Resort

Home of the famous Malagos Chocolates, the Malagos Garden Resort uniquely combines the raw beauty of nature, animals, and meaningful experiences not to mention educational too into one unforgettable encounter upon this 12-hectare land area located at Malagos Davao.

The theme park brings all sorts of individuals to find what they are into, may it be animals, nature, educational sections, playgrounds, chocolates, food, or pool. Everything seemed to be available inside the resort.

However, the highlight of our visit is their Malagos Chocolate Museum. Inside the resort resides a sweet and delicate building dedicated to everyone's favorite - chocolates!

It surely boasts everything about Cacao and Chocolate making process. But aside from that, I truly appreciate that they also provided a history of how chocolates started and how the Philippines specifically the Malagos Chocolate is now coping up with this business and also giving hope to the rest of the Filipino farmers.

Entering the building, we were greeted by the sound of what seems like recorded chirping birds. It was randomly playing and it gave us a vibe that we are inside the farm filled with cacao trees.

The walls are brick-styled, there are tarpaulins and pictures in each corner showing off their farmers and their cacao products. There were even bags filled with cacao seeds and nibs to give us the vibe that we are really on a farm.

Here are some of the facts we learned inside the museum:

• Pieces of evidence show that the Olmec and Mayan civilizations were the first to grow cacao as a domesticated crop. They used cacao in their daily and traditional activities such as for trading and weddings.

• On the other hand, Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover cacao beans. When he brought some beans back to Spain, nobody knew what the beans were for.

• The first record of milk chocolate was made by Chocolate maker Nicholas Sanders when he poured milk into his friend's chocolate drink.

  

  

• Nobles and clerics often brought chocolates while traveling as medicine. This made chocolate famous from country to country.

• Less expensive than tea, the drink became popular among the rich and the merchants. Cooking with ground cocoa also became a trend.

• By adding dry cocoa powder, sugar, and cocoa butter, Joseph Storss Fry created the first solid, eating chocolate bar.

• In the 1800s to 1900s, the demand for chocolate continued to increase across the world, giving rise to the great chocolate houses of Belgium, Switzerland, and France.

Tree to bar, Malagos Chocolate is committed to quality. Good agricultural practices are strictly enforced at the Puentespina Farms. Their products range from roasted cacao nibs, unsweetened chocolate, and dark chocolate.

Aside from learning how the chocolates at the Puentespina Farms are made, they also showed us how one can distinguish if there's a high content of cocoa in a chocolate bar or how we can taste a bar of chocolate. So if a bar of chocolate snaps cleanly when broken, it means there's a high cocoa content. If lower, there will be less snap. I tested this on several chocolates that I have tried and surely, there are some which have lower cocoa content.

In the Philippines, there are several other ways to also make use of cacao. One of the very common ones which I had been used to consuming before eating chocolates is the cacao tableya, kinutil, and sikwate.

Cacao tableya is pure chocolate made of raw cacao beans which are roasted, ground, and molded into circular or square tablets.

Sikwate is a beverage made with locally produced pure cacao tableya.

Kinutil is tuba mixed with chocolate, fresh egg yolk, and condensed milk.

Growing up, my mother would store packs of tableya in the fridge which she will then use for cooking champorado or porridge which will be served for breakfast or even during our snacks. Then she also serves sikwate together with our family favorite, puto maya or sticky white rice. The sikwate and puto maya combo is always a win most especially in the early cold mornings.

Kinutil on the other hand is usually served when someone in the family is not feeling well. They say it has something in it that makes the body recover from such health concerns.

I love sikwate and had been consuming it too after giving birth because there are testimonies from other moms who said that they drink this to increase their milk supply. I did too and it showed indeed a significant increase in my milk supply.

Going back to the Malagos Garden Resort's Chocolate Museum, I had learned that this is by far the first and only chocolate museum in the Philippines. Going there, one can bring home memories and even chocolates which visitors can mold themselves.

Do consider visiting Malagos Garden Resort when you are in Davao and have a tree-to-bar experience with the country's first and only chocolate museum.

Here's a video to showcase the Chocolate Museum:

xoxo,

mommy jean of momentswithmatti

Love harder than any pain you've ever felt.