Nugali Chocolates has a tour that provides a sensory journey

Just over three hours by road separate Curitiba from Pomerode, in the interior of Santa Catarina. But, depending on where you are there, you may believe that you have walked much further – in time and space. On the same stone path, just over 16 kilometers inside the city of around 30,000 inhabitants, are the Enxaimel Route and the Nugali Chocolates Factory. It’s two rides in one, and some time travel as a bonus.

As we go along the route and the half-timbered houses start to take over the landscape, it seems that we are going back to the end of the 19th century, when the first German settlers arrived in the region. The route’s rural landscape is dotted with around 50 houses reminiscent of fairytale illustrations.

Many of them are still inhabited by descendants of the first settlers, who built the whole house with a wooden structure, without a single nail. On the walls, exposed bricks and colors to celebrate the conquest of the home with windows, doors and floors. The beams are numbered. This allowed the house to be dismantled, taken to another land and built again.

The Enxaimel Route in Pomerode is the largest group of houses in this style of construction outside Germany. Listed by the National Historic Heritage Institute (Iphan), the route was elected by the UN as one of the best tourist villages in the world in 2021. This year, the Responsible Tourism Award in Latin America came.

Nugali tour takes visitors on a journey of sensations through chocolate

Located at the beginning of the route, the Nugali factory shop pays homage to this originally German construction method. The structure of the greenhouse at Tour Nugali is made of half-timbered wood, a reminder of local roots that, at the same time, is capable of transporting us many kilometers away.

Upon entering the greenhouse, which is part of the factory’s guided tour circuit, the feeling is of being taken to the middle of a cocoa plantation. Bees, birdsong, sweltering heat, flowers and cocoa beans on the tree make us forget for a moment that we are in the interior of Santa Catarina. It looks more like a cocoa plantation in Bahia or Pará.

Back to the here and now. After passing through the cocoa greenhouse, the tour takes us on a sensory experience involving smell and taste. In the first part, ingeniously equipped boxes store ingredients used in the production of different types of chocolate. Squeeze the spray bottle and feel the aroma of hazelnuts, coffee, vanilla…

In another room, more ingenuity. Now, to feel chocolate in its various moments and flavors. There are five taps where visitors can serve themselves – with the spoon they receive at the beginning of the tour – and taste the cocoa mass – bitter and slightly salty – to white chocolate. All in a creamy point thanks to a machine devised by the engineer and owner of Nugali, Ivan Blumenschein.

The tour was conceived and designed by him and his wife, Maitê Lang. Both engineers, they own Nugali and are responsible for building the brand’s identity, a pioneer in the bean-to-bar process in Brazil.

The intention, according to Blumenschein, is to expand the brand’s connection with the public that visits the factory’s store. “We are proud to show what we do and also a desire to educate our audience, to show how the chocolate process is done. Therefore, the tour makes perfect sense for our brand, which with this also manages to create a close relationship with the client”, he says.

Nugali has been working since its inception, in 2004, with Brazilian cocoa producers – Pará and Bahia. The company’s owners have developed their own method to better understand the basic raw material of the chocolate industry and guarantee top quality cocoa for the factory. Consequently, it still strengthens the national cocoa production chain.

Since the beginning of Nugali, Maitê and Ivan have sought direct contact with the country’s cocoa producers. In this process, they ignored the international manuals with evaluations on the national cocoa, trusted in the taste, went to the field and won prizes.

Nugali is one of the national chocolate brands with the most international awards. The first came in 2016, with the 80% Serra do Canduru Chocolate. Produced with cocoa of a single origin from Bahia, it has a fruity, slightly sweet flavor and has zero added milk and flavorings. Result possible with the right cocoa and ideal fermentation.

End-to-end sustainability: has zero waste and producers

The cat’s leap to arrive at chocolates of such quality was to learn about the Brazilian cocoa production method, from planting to drying, and to understand how each stage of this process influences the chocolate’s flavor. Understood this, they created a test method and feedback to producers. Twice a year – during the harvest in Bahia and after in Pará -, hundreds of batches of cocoa nibs are blindly evaluated by the Nugali team.

This evaluation is passed on to the producers who, with this, have the chance to understand what worked and what didn’t, and how they can evolve. “This feedback method is good for them and for us. Because they manage to improve cocoa over the years and we manage to have a better product. Finally, it also manages to expand the market and have more gains with the product”, explains Maite.

Every year, around 100 tons of Brazilian cocoa are purchased by Nugali. For the tested and superior quality product, the brand pays five times more than the value practiced by the commodity market.

In this way, the blind testing process carried out at Nugalli and the return to the producers of an annotated review of each batch sent creates a complete production cycle. In which the producer can connect the method to the flavor profile obtained and thus better understand the product and think about what changes he can implement to achieve a better result. It is always a step towards the future of a better crop.

Even in this step forward, Nugali has been working to become a zero waste company. One of the efforts towards this achievement was the change in the brand’s packaging. Metallized plastic was replaced by biodegradable polymer, which in a short time decomposes in nature without leaving toxic residues. The action guaranteed the CNI Innovation Award to Nugali in 2022.

Service:

Nugali Chocolates Tour – Rua Testo Alto, 4848 (Rota do Enxaimel) – Pomerode (SC). Open every day from 9 am to 6 pm. Values: Children up to 4 years old do not pay, the others R$ 40.00.

*The reporter traveled at the invitation of Nugali Chocolates