Manoon Thanawang was enjoying a very successful – and lucrative – career in the oil business. He had money, he had cars, he had an ultra-luxury lifestyle.
But something was missing. One day he went to temple…and a revelation occurred.
He quit his job, sold the cars and along with his wife Jaruwan Jinasen (who is his childhood sweetheart), moved back to the agricultural town of Pua, where they were born and raised.
Here they established Cocoa Valley, where they now grow cocoa to make chocolate, among many other products. But there’s so much more to it than that…
As we pull into the car park, Manoon is waiting to meet us. He’s got a smile from ear to ear – clearly the sea change has had an effect.
Super excited, he shows us around like a kid in a candy store (sorry, couldn’t resist!).
“This is the last thing I will do in the world before I die,” Manoon tells me as we chat in the deliciously-aromatic café that’s the first port of call for visitors. It’s packed full of the various products they make from cocoa, including cosmetics, shampoo, butter, clothing and even cocoa musk tea.
“I wanted to create a business with zero waste that is of benefit to the local people and to give those in and around our town an income.”
Manoon and his wife opened Cocoa Valley in 2010 and it now provides work and associated financial support to more than 50 local people (Pua suffers like many Thai towns in that the young people often head to big cities like Bangkok or Chiang Mai to live and find work).
Staff work in the café, in the fields, in the factory and in the resort Manoon has built to promote tourism. More on that later.
But the local community are not the only ones benefitting from the enterprise.
Planting the hundreds of cocoa trees needed to make the chocolate has helped reforestation in the surrounding hills while Manoon’s chemical-free production methods means its been a win-win for the local environment.
My Chance To Be An Oompa-Loompa
No trip to Cocoa Valley would be complete without getting your hands dirty so we head to a purpose-built kitchen where we’re going to be given the chance to create our own chocolate bars while learning about the entire production process.
Apparently a cocoa tree takes three years to produce fruit and you need five kilos just to make one cup of coffee. It’s clearly a long and labour intensive process so just think about that when you chow down on your next Snickers bar.
I’m also here to tell you that raw, 100 per cent chocolate tastes nothing like the stuff you get in wrappers in your local 7-Eleven. It’s strong enough to knock your socks off and almost inedible.
Donning aprons, we’re each given a piping bag full of molten chocolate and instructed to pipe it into what looks like plastic ice cube trays.
Once filled, we’re encouraged to decorate each cube with nuts, dried strawberries, raisins and little bits of flaky chocolate. The chocolate will need 20 minutes in the fridge and then it will be ready to eat.
This just gives us enough time to jump into a van and head off for a tour of one of the nearby “plantations”. I say plantation but this small field of cocoa trees is really just for the visitors – the actual fields are way up in the hills.
Still, it’s fun to strap a wicker basket to your back and try your hand at harvesting the cocoa pods from the trees. They come off fairly easily with a twist but obviously the more you harvest, the heavier the basket gets. Classic Catch-22 situation.
We also get to watch a small group of grizzled, experienced workers separating the good seeds from the bad seeds. It looks like hard, monotonous work but they seem happy to be doing it.
Just before we head back to Cocoa Valley we are introduced to Manoon’s father. He doesn’t speak much English so when we ask him if he’s proud of what his son has achieved he just grins from ear to ear. Clearly chocolate puts a smile on everyone’s face…
Sweet Dreams
Of course, the only thing better than visiting a chocolate factory and getting to try the product is actually staying there.
Once back at Cocoa Valley, we are given a tour of the three-star accommodation available at the attached resort.
There are 16-rooms available, all of which are clean, comfortable and offer great views of the verdant surrounding countryside.
There are standard, deluxe and suite options, all equipped with air conditioning, free Wi-Fi and flat-screen TVs. The bath tub with the fake chocolate overflow mark is a clever touch.
The entry level rooms range from Baht2,800 to Baht3,200 (approx. $AU130-$AU150) per night while the top of the range suite will cost you Baht4,500 (approx. $AU210). The latter offers 180 degree views of the Pua countryside from the massive bed or balcony.
Sadly, our visit is coming to an end but not before we all collect our chocolate creations. While I don’t think Cadbury’s have much to worry about, I’m pretty pleased with the way my attempt has come out – although it is still pretty strong stuff!
There’s just time for me to ask Manoon what he’s most proud of about what he’s created at Cocoa Valley.
“I wanted to create a new thing for the world and for the next generation, because students come here and study my model, my product and what I’ve built here,” he says.
“I think this is the way forward in the future – to leave a gift to the next generation, to ourselves, society and the world.”
Sounds like Manoon has found his own golden ticket to happiness.
