"The owners of this farm will not seek a loan to expand it because they are afraid that tomorrow this land could belong to the state," said Thalheim. "This country is becoming something like an African dictatorship, like [Robert] Mugabe in Zimbabwe."
El Rey's Redmond was more confident. He believes Venezuela can triple its annual cocoa crop of about 14,000 tonnes within 15 years, using money from multilateral lenders to renovate farms and plant premium-quality beans.
But he said he wouldn't relying on Chavez. "Successive governments have always made noises about recovering production, and regardless of who they are, they have never done anything."
Europeans have coveted cocoa since their arrival in the New World. It was among the exotic "treasures" Christopher Columbus brought back to Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.
It was not until 1519 when Aztec Emperor Montezuma served spicy "chocolatl" to Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes that its commercial promise was grasped. The Spanish swapped the Mexican drink's chili peppers for sugar and kept its preparation a lucrative secret from the rest of Europe for almost a century.
In Venezuela, chocolate was intimately intertwined with power as the Spanish aristocracy sowed cocoa in their estates. To be "big cocoa" denoted high social standing, and the bean powered the Venezuelan economy until the 19th century.
"In France and Spain, cocoa from Caracas is preferred above all others," wrote the 18th-century gourmet, Antonio Lavedan, in his Treatise on Tobacco, Coffee, Tea and Chocolate.
The average cocoa plantation in colonial times would have around 10,000 trees and 10 to 20 slaves. While Las Marias retains the irrigation channels built by the Spanish, cheaper coffee cultivation has overtaken cocoa, and only 400 trees remain
"This man has a dream," said Thalheim, gesturing toward Harcourt. "But when I see people like him trying to recover their cocoa, I would like to say, `Don't bother.'"
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