Honoka'a Chocolate Co FARM TOUR and GUIDED TASTINGS - Honokaa, Hawaii

Keily Abouye

This farm and the store team are truly exceptional! A big thank you to the store team for helping us arrange our tour, and to Mike, the owner, for providing an unforgettable experience. We left with a deeper appreciation and understanding of chocolate today

Rachel Jans

We did the 2 hour chocolate farm and tasting tour and I think it just wasn't the tour for us. It felt too long and a bit all over the place. The presenter seemed knowledgeable, but information wasn't presented in a consise way so at times it was hard to follow. I did really enjoy tasting the Cacao seed.

Ben Ware - he, him, his

Takes the chocolate seriously but in a relaxed setting. Informative, especially appreciated learning about cacao growing. Generous tasting.
There's just a tiny bit of walking on the farm, but I'd contact them if you have any mobility concerns.
Would absolutely recommend - we've taken an intro class on chocolate making, and still found this to be very informative (and delicious - we bought 7 bars to take home!).

Brendan Wray

Loved the tour and tasting - very interesting to learn more about the production and see a cacao tree and pods up close. Tasting the raw bean, roasted nibs, cacao tea, and finished chocolate were a great way to experience the gamut of tastes of the cacao bean. The finished dark chocolates are varied and delicious. Mike is a wonderful tour guide and host.

Alex Rico

The tour was a trip to the history of the place, the process of cacao grow and chocolate production, and its history and status in Hawaii. I learned so much in this tour, it was fantastic. Mike was very nice to listen and talk to. During the tasting, he also told us about the features to look for and what he was trying to achieve with each one of the chocolates. The chocolates are from their own beans and from imported beans. He also showed his chocolate "kitchen", and the multiple machines involved, plus his expansion plans.

We appreciated the knowledge, ambition and approach to life of Mike. Plus he was very nice to digitally share afterwards the chocolate tasting documents she showed during the tour. It was a good experience overall.

Celina Looyenga

Although the chocolate is delicious and Mike is well informed and dedicated to what he does, this tour is certainly not worth $80 per person ($91 with tax).

The tour consists of walking into the cocoa field and learning about cocoa. It was very interesting, but please note that depending on the season you tour, you may not get to see ripe pods and have them opened for you (as I saw others experience in reviews). Of course this is not Mike’s fault but is something to note. You do not get to see any equipment, although Mike will tell you about some equipment he owns. He let us know that we were welcome to go into the shop to purchase more chocolate but did not invite us to see the equipment or outline that as part of the tour.

For our tasting we received five small chocolates (I have a picture of them after sampled.). You also get to try cocoa tea, which is neat. We also each got 1 “complimentary” chocolate bar.

Overall, a neat way to spend a few hours but I personally feel that $80 plus tax is WAY too expensive for the tour. I would maybe pay $40. Just 15 minutes away you can tour a vanilla farm for $75 and receive a full lunch.

*Please see Bethany G’s review for an extremely accurate account of exactly what the tour involves (I didn’t want to just copy and paste).

John Stalvey

Owner Mike Pollard guided our tour. He is very knowledgeable and an excellent teacher. It is obvious he loves what he's doing and takes great pride in making exquisite chocolate.

Marie Kang-Scott

Very concise but informative tour. We learned a lot about making chocolate bars from cocoa. We surprisingly love the goat milk chocolate although we dislike goat milk. We bought a dozen.