Mindo Chocolate Tour

This was a very enjoyable couple of hours. We got the full history of the chocolate-making process which was really interesting and informative, and we got to try the different cocoa strengths with a hot chocolate at the end. And of course, there was lots of the chocolate to buy - which we did! Highly recommended

Visited this place for the tour. Very pricey at $12 pp. It's only about 1 hr which take you thru some cocoa trees, drying area, and a processing kitchen. Beans are not grown here but from different area of Ecuador. A lot of the tour is just for show. If it wasn't for the rain - i might have skipped it (not missing much) Guided tour was informative and the tiny samples at the end was ok. Brownie was so tiny and the Cocoa tea was just hot water from beans. If you've never seen the choc process, it may be ok but as i've seen it in Guatmala and other places in Ecuador (Amazon, Quito), so it was only so so. This is owned by an American FYI so well catered to tourist. The cafe is nice and you can buy chocolate or have coffee and cakes there in a nice setting.

My husband and I had a great time at the chocolate tour in Mundo. Our guide was super knowledgeable and we learned so much about chocolate processing. I loved that it was hands on and that we got to taste the different components of chocolate and also we got to taste different flavors of chocolate. My only regret is that we were pressed for time and we had to rush our tour. I would definitely give this place a visit.

Meh, compares to other activity, this is actually pretty bored, I like the red hair cute lady but it's just plain bored and actually time consuming. Unless you really prepared yourself for many questions, otherwise it's hardly worth the time and money.

Very small factory and personal tour. The brownie at the end was divine

A welcoming start to Mindo! From the moment I walked in, I was greeted and the team told me to make myself comfortable. It turned out to only be me on the tour (even better!). You get a history of the cacao pod to bar process, and a walk around the small grounds to be shown different stages of the process and also different types of cacao tree. I was very lucky with my guide as Jari stopped to show me other bits of wildlife (like a hummingbird nest) and explained the importance of chocolate to the Quechuan people as well as the importance of maintaining an organic and sustainable process (unlike most large scale chocolates famous around the world). We finished off with a tasting experience which included how to REALLY taste chocolate, and even a 100% chocolate skincare trial. Thanks very much to both staff members. All the best with your English teaching career!

Got a slightly late start but they gave us some great hot chocolate for free make up for it. Fantastic! Once the tour got started, we only had three in our group but he spent over an hour with us describing all the nuances of producing chocolate and giving us numerous samples of the finished product. Highly recommended!

This tour was very interesting and informative. I learned so much about how chocolate is made, from the cacao fruit, step by step, to the chocolate bar. Brian was an excellent guide, and we did several tastings along the way. The gift shop is wonderful also. Highly recommended.

Mindo chocolate tour was one of the best experiences I had in Mindo. If you love chocolate, this tour is for you. Our guide Miguel was very knowledgeable and personable. We learned about artisan chocolate, from growing cacao to the process of creating varieties and all the steps involved in creating what we know as the end product, the chocolate bar. It is also a very interactive experience which made me appreciate all the work and effort that goes into what they do at Mindo Chocolate Makers. What also impressed me was the “nothing goes to waste” mentality that is shown here. So to reiterate, when in Mindo, make some time to experience Mindo Chocolate tour. You will not regret it. P.S. You will also get to try some chocolate that is truly phenomenal.

El Mindo Chocolate tour was amazing!!! Our tour guide was so knowledgeable and thorough. We were the only ones so we had a private tour which lasted a little over an hr. We got to try 9 different types of chocolates and a brownie and they were all amazing!! They also have a restaurant there and we had a petso, tomato sandwich which was delicious, but the chocolate martini was definitely the best! Would definitely check this out when you come for a visit!!

An awesome, private and captivating tour. Our guide was Miguel, he speaks French and English and I have had tte best guided tour ever. Miguel was caring, interested, interesting and helpful. He provided us with a unique experience and a preferable treatment. We absolutely loved this tour!

The guide taught us a lot about the flavours of chocolate, and toured us through their garden full of the fruits they add to their chocolate. The tour ended with a tasting experience beyond what we expected. This is a small production outfit - no mass production here.

Wow… we had an amazing time! Me and my brother are visiting Mindo from US and always wanted to visit cocoa farm. We were pleasantly greeted by Miguel, he spoke very good English and was very welcoming! We had a tour around the garden and learned about different varitarions of cocoa, the soil, nutrients and other flavors/fruits that can be mixed into chocolate! In addition to cocoa trees, there were coffee trees, guava, oranges, ginger, berries, and so many other fruits/plants on the farm. We got to taste many different percentages of chocolates and tried cocoa tea as well! Miguel walked us through the entire chocolate process and answered many questions, he is very knowledgeable about the plant of Ecuador in addition to chocolate process! We had an amazing experience, we highly recommend this tour and Miguel!

This is the best chocolate tour I’ve ever been on, and I’ve been on many around the world for work. Our guide spoke English, Spanish, and French fluently and was informative, fun, and humorous. The chocolate tasting experience at the end of the tour is fantastic! We loved learning about how true chocolate is actually Medicine, which was a beautiful way to feel more in touch with the land and Pacha Mama.

Very informative, friendly guide, delicious chocolate. We really enjoyed it! We learned all about their process of making chocolate, walked around a beautiful farm, and had a tasting at the end. Everyone was friendly and informative

This was a very interesting and delicious tour of how chocolate is made right from picking of the beans to packaging the chocolate. This is a small company with an interesting story. Includes a lot of sampling😊

I am a bit of a travel snob and generally hate touristy tours. This one was informative, the right length and the garden part of the tour excellent.

Sergio was amazing from the beginning: energetic, knowledgeable, and very friendly. The flow of the tour was very appropriate. The combination of sit down for an initial taste of the beans from a fresh cacao , the walk in the garden to understand the trees and the flora in the area, to the processing steps and back to the tasting of real chocolate. Well designed!

This was a great tour! We loved Miguel, who explained so much about the chocolate making process, and was kind and funny the whole time. The tasting at the end was delicious, and we got some great chocolates to go home and dinner in their restaurant. Overall, I would highly recommend. A kind and welcoming atmosphere the whole time.

The Mindo chocolate tour was an educational and fun experience. Not only did we get to try cacao and chocolate at various stages of its preparation, we got to learn about growing the cacao and enjoy some of the fruits grown on the property as well. We really liked trying some of the unique flavors, such as salt and pepper and ginger!

Just a wonderful experience, a very nice hour spent with everything that's chocolate. You learn about how cocoa beans are grown, fermented, dried, how chocolate is made, etc etc, whilst also can have a look at some other plants grown in the gardens. Once you are finished with the tour, you get to taste a LOT of chocolate products made locally, all of them are of excellent quality. You also get to buy anything you tasted afterwards in the little shop inside. Fully recommended if you like chocolate, definitely a must do if you are in Mindo! Thank you!

We did the one hour tour as a family of four. Sergio was wonderfully friendly enthusiastic and informative. He was very kind and lovely to our children. He showed us the ingredients of chocolate, we were able to taste the fruit and then the products at various stages. We then looked at where the fruit is grown, dried and processed. The garden was beautiful and worth seeing in its own right. We then ended by trying the various chocolates, and enjoyed tea and a brownie (best I have ever had). I would highly recommend this tour and great value at $10 per adult and $6 for each child.

We learned that chocolate in pure form is actually very bitter. It was a very interesting tour of the whole process of chocolate making. We tasted several chocolate mixes. The tour guide was very good and knowledgeable. She also showed us the cacao butter. We also ate lunch here and the trout was very good.

We stopped here with the family. They walk you through every step on how chocolate is made right on-site in their organic gardens. They have a variety of flavors to try made with local ingredients including coffee, chili, ginger,salt & pepper, macadamia nut, and cardamom. They let you taste them all and also give you cocoa tea, cocoa paste, cocoa syrup, a brownie and time to experiment with flavors. There is a gift shop on-site and the Quetzal Restaurante with specialty sauces made from chocolate and other local ingredients. We enjoyed it immensely!

If you love chocolate, heck even if you just like chocolate a little, you should take this tour. Not only will you learn about the process of making chocolate, but you will get the chance to sample the finished product, which of course is the best part. And you’ll have the opportunity to purchase all kinds of different chocolate and coffee products.

Really enjoyed this tour! I had done a tour in Quito 2 years ago, but this was better. Got to actually see cacao trees and coffee trees and from tree to finished product. Such a process and rather labor intensive. This is a small batch operation. I took of a star, because they have not updated their hours and we showed up at 9:30am (Google hours state that they open at 8am). After touring yesterday and having a fabulous coffee there, we went back to have another today before leaving town and they were not open. :(

I found this tour to be extremely informative and interesting. I never knew all the steps involved in making chocolate! It was very cool to walk the grounds and see the entire process from small trees to finished product. The tasting of the different qualities of chocolate was interesting too. Definitely worth taking the time to do this tour!

Enjoyed a Mindo cocktail event on Zoom. Creative chocolate drinks that are really unique and delicious. Thanks, Barby, for sharing your passion and creativity with us! Rose

The tour was quick seeing as I was the only one on it at the end of the day. There is plenty to sample as the tour wraps up, including every flavor of chocolate, paste, tea, and some syrups. It is great to sample before purchasing anything so you know what suits your palette best. Also, they have a restaurant where you can order from a great menu, whether food or drinks. Yummy chocolate pancakes and fresh fruit!

A really interesting and informative tour around the beautiful El Quetzal chocolate factory. Our guide George was really friendly and interesting and was able to answer all our questions about the chocolate process and more generally about Mindo and the local nature. The tour concludes with absolutely loads of samples, all of which are really delicious. Really recommended!

We learned a lot about the process and whats important to know about the quality of chocolate. Our tour guide was very friendly and had an answer to all our questions. It was really interesting and especially the tasting of the different types of chocolate and the other products from El Quetzal was our highlight. Thanks a lot!

I took a day trip from Quito to Mindo. The town itself could be considered a clone of Minca in northern Colombia while being slightly more aesthetically pleasing. It was easily walkable and had a mix of expensive restaurants, tour package operators, and souvenir shops. I was able to find the cities tourism office across the street from the central square. Talking to the representative, there seem to be excursions located right outside of the city which are very popular amongst tourists. These include ziplining, butterfly watching, horseback riding, and rappelling. There was also three waterfalls in which people could hike too. These excursions were priced between $5-45 USD; however, taxis costs about 6 USD each way which is criminal when considering the price for public transportation in Ecuador. Generally, when there are a lot of tourists around, one can split the cab ride to make it more affordable. However, most of the tourists that I saw were heading to the terminal to go back to Quito. Thus, I decided to forgo those activities and just do a tour of Mindo’s main chocolate factory. It was an hour-long tour that cost $10 USD an done through a company called Quetzal. During my city tour in Quito, it was recommended that I observe the chocolate making process in Mindo. Fortunately, I was the only person there and Jorge (the tour guide) explained to me the process of converting cocoa beans into items like chocolate bars, lip balm, and even barbeque sauce. We also toured the factory as workers were busy melting and packaging chocolate bars. The best part of the tour came when I got to try the finished products. I tried everything from organic hot cocoa to ginger flavored chocolate. My favorite was the brownie which was so good that I overpaid ($3 USD) for another piece from the restaurant. The tour provided good value for the price and gave me something affordable to do while in Mindo. After the tour, I headed back to the bus station just in time to catch the 1:45 PM bus back to Quito.

The tour was good. Sergio explained with details all about cacao plants, and chocolate process. Their trees are organic and the process is artisan. But all this is was killed when they present the chocolate with one use plastic spoons and cups. Even worst when you buy a glass bottle which is all wrapped up in a lot of plastic and put on a plastic bag. There's paper good options that could be used. Now in Ecuador we are trying to eliminate one-time use plastic items and this kind of places should be the first ones to change their minds. We submitted our suggestion to the cashier, we really hope that we all understand the impact we can have changing our habits with plastic.

Yesterday, I did the chocolate tour. After reading the few bad reviews here, I suppose they improved. The tour is informative enough, with a small walk around the garden to see cacao trees, hierba luisa, stevia.. then the fermenting and drying process and everything from there until making chocolate bars. They can't grow the beans themselves, because the climate in Mindo is just not good for it. After all of that, you get to taste about 7 different kinds of chocolate, then a brownie, sauces.. The tour costs $10 these days and are every hour.

Amazing tour of hand-made chocolate! So interesting and only available in Mindo or Michigan. Staff very friendly and we learned a lot. The chocolate was amazing! Lunch was delicious. A must do for anyone traveling to the Mindo area!

I went along to this chocolate tour to spend an afternoon doing something new. It wasmuch more interesting than I had expeted and there was lots of good chocolate tasting as well Recommended.

We just did this tour today and had a great time. The guide is so knowledgeable and explained the entire process of making chocolate from scratch. It was a very hands on experience, where we got to see, touch, smell, and taste the artisanal chocolate made at El Quetzal. It was fascinating and our 2 kids (16 and 13 yo) and us thoroughly enjoyed it. It was also fun to shop at their shop. They have lots of goodies to bring back. Highly recommend it!

The chocolate tour is a wonderful and interesting activity in Mindo. The small factory produces great chocolate, the whole production process is explained and afterwards there is a tasting with different types of chocolate, paste of chocolate, cacao tea, brownies and so on. Wonderful experience and well worth our time and money.

We’ve done chocolate tours in the US but this one was unparalleled! Our guide, George, was fun but not corny. We learned all about the process of taking chocolate from pod to bar and got to eat the fresh cocoa bean fruit. We were so impressed! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I had no idea that chocolate tour will be so great! It was very interesting and not only for chocolate lovers. Sergio showed us how to make chocolate, step by step. We saw the cacao tree, cacao fruits, what happens to it and then how to make chocolate. In the end we could eat as much chocolate as we wanted and not only chocolate. We tried cacao tea and paste and got amazing brownies. The whole area is very beautiful and chocolate making process is very interesting. The best is that chocolate which is available in this place is made all from local products!! I totally recommend this tour to anyone who visits Mindo

This was a great tour - we learned about chocolate from cocao bean to deliciousness! Our tour guide was very entertaining and informative and spoke excellent english.

I went to this factory as part of a private tour to Mindo. The guide was very informative. The best part was the mixing of the chocolate at the end and the lunch!

We've just finished the chocolate tour with Sergio, sitting on the balcony at El Quetzal indulging in the 7 types of chocolates on offer! The tour was brilliant. We were walked through the full process and were not made to feel rushed whatsoever, even though I asked a lot of questions! A perfect way to spend a couple of hours in Mindo. Thank you very much Sergio!

This tour was great. They guide was very knowledgeable and friendly. He explained their process of taking chocolate from the pod to the bar. You got try suck on a bean from a pod, try 100% pure chocolate sauce, then that mixed with sugar, then mixed with ground coffee and sugar. There were also many chocolate samples of the different types of dark chocolate they sell. yiu also get a delicious brownie at the end and tea made from the cocoa shells.

Excellent guide who was Portugese and spoke fluent English. Walked around the compact grounds to see the beans growing right up to the processes (through a window only). They pride themselves on pure chocolate production and do not sell wholesale, just to visitors so the prices may initially seem rather high. Tasting followed including raw chocolate up to the flavoured specimens and a brownie plus drink. We actually added the sugar and flavour to experience the changes that they make. No part of the original Cocoa pod is wasted - overall and excellent tour - recoemmended. Also have a bar/cafe on site and make ginger beer but we didn't have time to partake.

We were lucky enough to be the only two people with George for the ‘Tour de Chocolate’ on a rainy afternoon in Mindo. We thoroughly enjoyed his friendly nature, and his sense of humor. The chocolate process was fascinating and the brownie was superb. George also happens to be a fantastic birding guide for very reasonable prices, so if you’re a smaller group of 1-4 people he’s absolutely worth hiring for a morning birding tour of Mindo.

We enjoyed learning about the cacoa bean . We got to try the bean in it’s pod, see how it how starts and try why happens when you add sugar. The tour cost us $10pp and was very informative.

This was a fantastic experience, the tour is well-worth it. The staff is very personable. At the end they provide a taste test, and the shop has cocoa products as well as souvenirs to remember Mindo by (I picked up a couple chocolate bars and a T-shirt).

We went there with small children and it was great. Our tour guide was a portuguese guy who was extremely nice and with a very good attitude. I think his name was Sergio though Im not completely sure. He knew a lot about chocolate, cacao and the Mindo environment. The chocolate tasting at the end is definitely worth it! Happy customer