ChocoMuseo

This guide to the ChocoMuseo in Cusco opens with an odd historical problem: Aztec merchants once used cacao beans as currency, and forgers found ways to fake beans out of clay, wax, ash, and mashed avocado pits. It follows how that fraud never really went away, resurfacing today as cacao mislabeled by origin or cut with cheap palm oil. From there it walks you upstairs into the workshop, where you crack open a real pod, roast the beans, and grind them into paste by hand.