From Cacao to Chocolate: A Farm Visit and Local Home-Cooked Lunch
チェンマイ坂田The chocolate we eat without a second thought: what kind of fruit does it come from, and how is it made?
On this tour you see cacao growing in the countryside outside Chiang Mai and learn how the fruit becomes chocolate.
After trying your hand at making chocolate, we visit a nearby local home and share a home-cooked meal.
A hands-on tour of about six hours where you not only learn about cacao but also meet the land that grows it and the people who live there.
Highlights of this tour
1. From cacao pod to chocolate
Looking at real cacao trees and pods, you learn how cacao is grown and harvested.
You also see the steps that turn cacao into chocolate: fermentation, drying, roasting and processing.
Finally, you make chocolate yourself!
Once you learn how each step shapes taste and aroma, you begin to see how much time and care goes into a single bar of chocolate.
2. A home-cooked lunch made by a hill tribe family
Not a restaurant, but a home where people really live. We enjoy the home cooking of the Lisu people of Northern Thailand.
How the tour runs
* Times and content may shift depending on traffic and how the activities progress.
- 8:00 Depart Chiang Mai city – From the meeting point, we head for the countryside outside Chiang Mai.
- The meeting point will be the ManiTabi shop.
- 8:45 Visit a Royal Project learning centre
- We visit a learning centre of the Royal Project, which supports Thai agriculture, and learn about the plants of Thailand. We also see the oldest cacao tree in Northern Thailand.
- 10:00 The processing steps and chocolate making
- Walking through the farm, we look at cacao trees and pods and hear from the grower about cultivation and harvesting.
- We learn the flow of fermentation, drying, roasting and processing, then make our own original chocolate.
- 11:30 Lisu home-cooked lunch
- 12:45 Depart for Chiang Mai city – A relaxed drive back to the city.
- Around 13:30 Arrive in Chiang Mai city and finish
Recommended for
- Those who love chocolate and cacao
- Those who want to know the story behind how food is made
- Those who want to try it themselves, not just watch
- Those who want to taste home cooking in Chiang Mai
- Those who want to meet local life that is hard to see at tourist sights
- Families looking for an experience to learn from together with children
Tour details
| Time | 8:00 – around 14:00 (approx. 6 hours) |
| Price | 1,600 THB per person (Backpack FESTA special price) |
| What’s included | Vehicle and driver, guide, farm visit, chocolate making and a home-cooked lunch |
| Meeting / finishing point | Chiang Mai city |
| Language | English / Japanese |
| What to bring | Comfortable clothes, walking shoes, a hat, insect repellent and rain gear |
Your village host
Sunny, a former nurse from the Lisu community, is the founder of Cocoa Doi.
Sunny works across everything from growing cacao to fermentation, processing and product development, and passes this know-how on to local farmers.
By raising the value of cacao, Sunny is building a system that creates work and income for farmers and lets the whole community grow together.
Bright and friendly, Sunny introduces cacao with real passion.
Booking and questions
See cacao pods, make chocolate, and eat at a local home.
A day to meet not only the food, but the land that grows it and the people who live there. Send us a WhatsApp message with “cacao and home lunch tour”, your preferred date and group size.
Contact us on WhatsAppMore on how cacao becomes chocolate (article in Japanese)
ManiTabi 
For the history of cacao in Thailand (article in Japanese)
