Words Jamila Douhaibi
Photos Sarah Hartley Photography
Like wine tasting, there’s a delicate way to taste high quality chocolate. In small pieces, and letting it melt in your mouth. The best chocolate isn’t processed with heat or pressure, and should be at least 70%. But, at Violet Grove Farms, the Chocolate Experience starts with cacao nibs that are 85% dark chocolate. And because the farm primarily grows fruit and has an orchard, amateur chocolatier Molly Glesby has been adding apricots, apples, blackberries and more to the chocolate that she makes.
It begins with a bean. Marc Glesby, the historian, starts the experience with information on the origins of cacao, its long history, how to process it, and its great health benefits. What kids eat from their Halloween buckets, and what you’re getting here, are two totally different chocolates. This bean is dried and fermented, and the extracted refined cacao then comes to the Glesbys as 100% cacao mass, in this case “single origin sourced from Ecuador.”
The Glesbys’ story began in Victoria. Marc and Molly met while going to UVic “a loooong time ago.” Marc grew up in the city, while Molly was raised in rural Alberta. They moved provinces and changed careers until they ended up back on the Island and living on the Peninsula with their twins – Riley and Chloe. After a few years, they decided that they “needed some land for both metaphorical roots and some real ones,” too. Although Molly was used to country living, she says that getting Marc into the “rural mindset” was “nothing a tractor couldn’t fix.”
After living in North Saanich, the “proper-tuni-ty” came up for their current farm on Wain Road. With over three acres of cleared land to do something with, the family decided to plant over 100 trees after moving there in the summer of 2017, and “Violet Grove Farms was created.” They started with apple and pear trees, and now have figs, apricots, sour cherries, rhubarb, and so many varieties of flowers that Chloe started a U-pick flower field at the orchard. Lavender is the only flower that has made it into the chocolate so far, but many of the fruits have, and will in the future.
This is the first year that the Chocolate Experience has been offered. Molly says that there was something missing for visitors coming to their farm, and they wanted a different way to connect with the community. And so, the Chocolate Experience “seemed like a natural way to fill that gap.” The Glesbys don’t claim to be experts, but say their passion for chocolate is what drives them. The couple visited The Chocolate Project in Victoria and tried chocolate from around the world. After going on a three-hour Chocolate Tour at a cacao farm on a recent trip to Kauai, Molly says the “chocolate high was affecting our decision-making ability,” and they decided to combine teaching people about this superfood with the offerings of their orchard to create their “very own version of this tour.”
Although the couple is new at providing this unique experience, the chocolate tastes like it’s been created by seasoned professionals. After the cacao nibs, there are about a dozen chocolates to try, including the farm’s fruit infusions, lavender, chai, maple bacon and salted caramel. Molly is excited to continue trying new combinations, so the flavours likely won’t be the same in 2026. Next year they are hoping to source cacao from another country to see what flavours different beans produce, with the possibility of adding their homegrown rhubarb or sour cherry.
The tour ends with a traditional chocolate drink, with spices and honey. Marc says it works as a great uplifting drink that you could have in the morning instead of coffee. When people leave, they want to instill in them “the important impact of sustainable farming for cacao trees worldwide, and also right here, on small farms and orchards.” The orchard itself is pesticide and herbicide free, and the chocolate “consists of only cacao, cacao butter, organic cane sugar, and inclusions.”
Everyone on the Glesby farm works together – Molly makes the chocolate, Marc is the tour guide, Chloe runs the flower farm (guests can combine flower arranging and chocolate) and Riley runs the marketing. Currently the family has no intention of expanding their chocolate business outside of the farm. So, if you want to enjoy the unique, local Chocolate Experience in 2025, you’ll have to visit Violet Grove Farms before the summer ends.
www.violetgrovefarms.ca
