Indonesia’s cacao sector spans islands, climates, and generations. From smallholder farms in Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara to emerging chocolate makers and researchers across the country, cacao connects cultivation, craft, and experimentation.

I traveled to Indonesia during fieldwork connected to agricultural and value-chain initiatives in the cocoa sector. What held my attention was not scale or export history, but proximity: hands sorting beans beneath corrugated roofs, pods split open along dirt paths, fermenting racks tended with patient repetition. Labor here moves between field and workshop, between inherited knowledge and renewed ambition.

Cacao in Indonesia carries layers of history — colonial introduction, decline, reinvention — yet what persists in these photographs is present-tense attention. Farmers move carefully through groves. Young makers test flavor in small batches. Researchers lean over trays, searching for nuance.

These images observe the quiet effort required to sustain and refine flavor across distance and time. Drawn from extended field engagement, this body of work is being revisited and shaped into an evolving long-form series.