In February 2026, we travelled to Amsterdam for Chocoa — one of the world's most important gatherings of craft chocolate makers, cacao producers, and origin specialists. While we were there, we took part in the Cacao of Excellence Ed Seguine Auction, a prestigious event that offers chocolate makers the rare opportunity to bid for exceptional, award-winning cacao from around the world.
We won.
The cacao we brought home is from Kampura, a regenerative agroforestry farm on 800 hectares in Izabal, Guatemala. It is a light, delicate, breaking cacao with Heirloom Cacao Preservation (HCP) status — one of fewer than 30 cacao origins in the world to have earned that designation. Kampura's cacao is number 17 on that list.
This is its story.
What Is the Cacao of Excellence Auction?
The Cacao of Excellence programme, run by Bioversity International, is the world's most rigorous evaluation of fine cacao. Hundreds of samples from growing regions across the globe are submitted each year and assessed by expert judges on flavour, complexity, and quality. The top 50 are recognised; the very best win medals. The Ed Seguine Auction — named in honour of the legendary cacao geneticist and flavour expert — gives craft chocolate makers the chance to purchase small lots of these exceptional cacaos directly.
Kampura has appeared in the top 50 twice — in both 2023 and 2025 — and won Bronze Medals in the Central America & Caribbean category in both years. It is, by any measure, one of the finest cacaos in the world.
Kampura: A Living Transformation
Kampura was founded in 2011 with a commitment that was, at the time, quietly radical: to restore exhausted cattle pasture into a living, productive forest. What had been degraded land is now a regenerative agroforestry system — a layered, biodiverse landscape where cacao grows beneath a canopy of native trees, and where food and forest thrive together.
Since 2011, the team at Kampura has planted over 700,000 trees across their 800 hectares — rosewood, mahogany, natural rubber, and native species — rebuilding soil health and restoring ecological resilience inspired by the principles of syntropic agriculture. The cacao grows beneath this diverse canopy, slowly, in conditions that mirror the forest environment in which Theobroma cacao evolved.
The name Kampura means “beautiful woman” in Miskito, a language spoken along Nicaragua's Caribbean coast — chosen to honour the quiet strength of nature to heal, nourish, and give life. It is shared with respect and gratitude to the Miskito people who helped the founders understand its meaning.
Heirloom Cacao: What It Means
The Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund (HCP) designation is one of the rarest and most meaningful distinctions in the world of fine cacao. To earn it, a cacao must demonstrate both exceptional flavour and genetic significance — it must be a variety worth preserving, not just for the quality of the chocolate it produces, but for its place in the broader story of cacao's genetic heritage.
Fewer than 30 origins worldwide have earned HCP status. Kampura's cacao is number 17. It is a light, breaking cacao — delicate in character, with a flavour profile that reflects the extraordinary care taken at every stage of its production. Kampura manages the entire post-harvest process at origin: fermentation, drying, light roasting, and stone-grinding. Nothing is added. Nothing is taken away. The result is a cacao of traceable, verifiable quality — certified organic for the UK, USA, and EU, and lab-tested for safety including heavy metals.
Partnership with the Qʼeqchiʼ Maya
Kampura's work is inseparable from its relationship with its Qʼeqchiʼ Maya neighbours. Their skill and dedication, the farm's founders acknowledge openly, make Kampura possible. This is not a token acknowledgement — it is a statement of mutual prosperity that runs through everything the farm does. Kampura's values of transparency, partnership, and regeneration are not marketing language; they are the operating principles of a farm that has spent fifteen years proving them in practice.
Guatemala's National Forest Institute (INAB) has recognised Kampura's agroforestry management with first place recognition for forest management achievements, and second place in the national Seed Bank category for their Honduran Rosewood protection programme. These are not chocolate industry awards. They are environmental awards — recognition from Guatemala's own institutions that what Kampura is doing on the land is genuinely significant.
What This Cacao Tastes Like
Kampura's cacao is a light, delicate breaking cacao — which means it has a gentler, more nuanced character than the bold, intense profiles of some other origins. The careful fermentation and light roasting at origin preserve the cacao's natural complexity: floral, clean, and with a brightness that reflects the living forest in which it was grown.
Working with a cacao of this quality and rarity is a privilege that we do not take lightly. Our role as chocolate makers is to honour what the farm has produced — to make decisions at every stage of our process that allow the character of this extraordinary cacao to come forward, rather than imposing our own flavour on top of it.
Why This Matters
Winning cacao at the Cacao of Excellence auction is not just about acquiring an exceptional ingredient. It is a statement about the kind of chocolate making we believe in — transparent, traceable, rooted in relationships with producers who share our values. Kampura's commitment to regenerative agriculture, to partnership with their Qʼeqchiʼ Maya neighbours, to preserving heirloom genetics and restoring degraded land — these are exactly the values that the Craft Chocolate Makers Association of the UK & Ireland was formed to champion.
This is what real chocolate looks like. Not synthesised in a laboratory. Not blended from anonymous commodity beans. Grown in a living forest in Guatemala, by people who have spent fifteen years rebuilding the land it came from.
We can't wait for you to taste it.
Follow us on social media and sign up to the Chocolate Lovers Club to be the first to hear when our Kampura Guatemala chocolate is available. In the meantime, explore our other Single Origin Chocolate Bars or join us for a Manufactory Tasting Journey to learn more about how we work with exceptional cacao.
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