The Brief

Anytime you snap a bar of chocolate, sink your teeth into a Reese's or sip Swiss Miss from a mug, the cacao that makes up the best part of each of those sweet treats likely came from within 20 degrees of the equator. As far north as Vietnam and Hawaii, and as far south as Madagascar and Bolivia.

View of the oldest cocoa tree planted in Ghana in 1879 at Tetteh Quarshie cocoa farm in Mampon on June 14, 2019 in Eastern Region of Ghana.

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Cristina Aldehuela

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AFP

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Theobroma cacao, the trees from which chocolate comes, are picky about their environment. They prefer warm and humid conditions with a lot of rain, thriving in partial shade where they’re afforded a whole lot of protection from strong wind and sun.

All of which makes the environment here in Southern California — dry, windy, at times both brutally hot and cold — less than ideal for them if you’re going to try and grow them outside. Which is why I was surprised and thrilled when I found out that there are multiple people who've figured out how to both grow cacao and make chocolate from the beans nearby.

Given that the cacao industry is threatened by climate change (and rife with abuse), might locally grown chocolate be a viable alternative?

After talking through the process with three different people, it’s not easy by any means, but maybe if you’re up to it you too can give it a go. I know I’ll be trying in my backyard (with the proper greenhouse setup) sometime soon.

Think of this less as a how-to guide and more so a post meant to get you excited to go on an experimental cacao journey of your own.

The intrepid DIY-ers

One of the things I love about the rare fruit-growing community here in Southern California is that it attracts all kinds of different people interested in ridiculous experimentation in less-than-ideal environments.

When it comes to cacao trees, I found two groups taking on the challenge of going from dirt to bar.

Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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The first group is down the street from the LAist studios in Pasadena, in a nondescript warehouse. Seamus Blackley, physicist and creator of the Xbox, is growing several trees with his creative partner Asher Sefami, a trained microbiologist. They took on the process as distraction to get their minds off of the other super-secret engineering work they're doing at the same location.

Meanwhile, up in Santa Barbara, Mike Orlando, the owner of Twenty-Four Blackbirds, has been making boutique chocolate since 2009. He recently began importing cacao pods, sprouting the beans and growing his own trees in a nearby greenhouse.

So, what can we learn from them?

Step 1: Growing the trees

First, you need to get your hands on some trees.

You can pick them up from rare fruit nurseries in L.A., like Mimosa, or you can sprout your own.

An Afro-Colombian farmer separates pulpy cacao seeds from a cacao pod during a harvest on a traditional cacao farm on Dec. 1, 2021 in Cuernavaca, Colombia.

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Jan Sochor

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Getty Images

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If you get your hands on some fresh pods, pull out the seeds, wash off the pulp, peel off the outside skin and stick them along with a moist paper towel in a plastic bag. Keep them in a warm environment, somewhere between 80 to 90 degrees, and wait.

Cacao seeds sprouting.

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Mike Orlando

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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate

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Each pod has 30 to 50 seeds, so you'll have a lot of opportunities.

Cacao plants that've been sprouted from seed.

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Mike Orlando

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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate

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Once you have your cacao tree, you need to plant it.

Sefami stuck theirs in oil drums with standard potting soil.

Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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Orlando planted his in a greenhouse.

One of the most critical components of this process is controlling the environment the trees live in, as they prefer moist and warm conditions with dappled light.

Orlando shoots to keep his greenhouse from 60 to 80 degrees at about 70% humidity, though he's seen the trees survive in 40-degree weather.

Cacao trees kept warm and moist in a greenhouse.

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Mike Orlando

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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate

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In Blackley's climate-controlled lab, a nearby water jet keeps the humidity up and grow lights above the trees give them at least 12 hours of sunlight. They had a problem with aphids, so they tried to remedy the issue with thousands of ladybugs before eventually just using pesticides.

For fertilizer, Orlando sprays the leaves with a kelp mixture and sprinkles Miracle Grow Osmocote every three months or so, depending on how they look.

As you'll find if you start growing plants, a lot of it's a feel thing.

Step 2: Pollinating tiny flowers (the hardest part)

In the wild, cacao trees are often pollinated by biting midges, which don't exist here. So, you'll need to pollinate each tiny flower by hand, using pollen from different plants.

Orlando hasn't quite gotten to this point in the process, but Sefami and Blackley have, after about two years of trying to figure it out.

"The first pod we got, we were through the moon," said Sefami. "And it got to about the size of a Tic Tac and then it just falls off. And it was like ... it was one of the most painful moments."

Cacao flowers grow on trees at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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"The hard part is when you have tweezers and you're trying to decide if this plant and this plant are different enough genetically, they might work. And you spend half an hour pollinating, and maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, and you don't know what's going on, and the tree is dying, and you're not sure why," said Blackley.

Asher Zelig Sefami pulls pollen from a cacao flower.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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"Basically you need to take the flower apart into its constituent parts. We remove the pollen and then we have to rub it on the other flowers in a way that just touches where it needs to go,“ said Sefami.

"The flower needs to be at just the right stage of development. Within about a day, they fall off. It’s really hard to get it right."

Cacao pods grow on a tree at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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Turns out the biting midges are quite effective, said Blackley.

Step 3: Harvest and ferment the beans

If you get to the point where you're harvesting the pods, next you've got to ferment them.

Blackley and Sefami pulled the beans out of the pods smushed them into a bowl and stuck them in a proofing box.

Cacao beans fermenting.

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Seamus Blackley

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They kept the beans at about 83 degrees Fahrenheit, around 80% humidity and mixed them once a day. There was so much microbial activity that the temperature of the beans climbed to 115 degrees before dropping down over the course of about a week.

"At first it smells ... doughy and bready. And then the fermentation process gets taken over by bacteria that produce essentially vinegar, so it starts to smell kind of sharp," said Blackley.

"And then one day you open up the fermentation chamber and it starts to smell like chocolate. It's completely strange."

After they were done fermenting, they dried them to 3% moisture to get them ready for roasting.

Step 4: Roast, grind and temper the cacao

While you can purchase all sorts of different specialty roasting equipment, Orlando recommends you just throw them into your oven at about 250 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until they start to smell like brownies.

Then, separate the nibs from the shells, blend them in a spice grinder and then grind them into as fine a liquid as you can get them to in a mortar and pestle. This is when you'll add your sugar — 30% by weight will give you 70% dark chocolate.

Alternatively, you can purchase a wet grinder, which uses stone wheels to pulverize the cacao into a smooth chocolate liquor.

"If that was your first time making chocolate, you'd be pretty impressed. It tastes pretty good," said Orlando.

Step 5: Make the bars

Finally, you can temper your chocolate, which gives a bar its characteristic snap when you bite into it.

A bar of finished chocolate.

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Mike Orlando

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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate

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You then pour it into molds, wait for it to harden and enjoy.

Step 6: Taste the chocolate

If you get this far, you've probably since spent years of effort and thousands of dollars for something you could've purchased at the store for about $12. And we should be friends because it's the kind of absolutely insane experimentation I love.

"I'll tell you, growing chocolate from seed is quite an adventure, but it's the kind of thing you should do in your life. Don't you want to know how to do that? Make chocolate from dirt? Come on," said Blackley.

The final product from Blackley and Sefami.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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So how did their chocolate taste?

Absolutely delicious! It was fruity with notes of cinnamon and I could've kept eating it. Though, considering the investment each square was probably worth its weight in gold, they only gave me a tiny piece.

If you want to just buy already-made chocolate, you can also check out Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.

The machine on the left keeps the chocolate in temper so employees can fill molds for chocolate truffles at Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.

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Mike Orlando

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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate

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Resources for DIY-ers

This is far from a comprehensive guide, but if you do go on a dirt-to-bar chocolate journey, there are some great resources out there to guide you through the chocolate making part in particular.

• Chocolate Alchemy is a reliable resource with links to equipment suitable for a DIY-er.
• Making Chocolate: From Bean To Bar To S'more written by the creators of Dandelion Chocolate illustrates the process well.
• California Rare Fruit Growers has chapters throughout the state, filled with people passionate about growing unconventional plants.

If you do any of the above, let me know! I'm always looking for excuses to get paid to go eat chocolate.

Raul Malo, the leader of the country band The Mavericks and one of the most recognizable voices in roots music, died Monday night, according to a representative of the band. The guitarist and singer had been battling cancer.

He was hospitalized last week, forcing him to miss tribute shows staged in his honor at the Ryman Auditorium over the weekend. He was 60 years old.

"No one embodied life and love, joy and passion, family, friends, music and adventure the way our beloved Raul did," read a statement released by his family.

Malo's group, The Mavericks, mourned the loss of their leader in a social post.

"Anyone with the pleasure of being in Raul's orbit knew that he was a force of human nature, with an infectious energy," the statement read. "Over a career of more than three decades entertaining millions around the globe, his towering creative contributions and unrivaled, generational talent created the kind of multicultural American music reaching far beyond America itself."

Over a career that lasted four decades, The Mavericks lived up to the band's name, challenging expectations and following a roadmap crafted by Malo's expansive musical upbringing as the son of Cuban immigrants in Miami.

"I grew up in a very musical household. There was all kinds of music around always," he told WHYY's Fresh Air in 1995. "We listened to everything from Hank Williams to Celia Cruz to Sam Cooke to Bobby Darin. It didn't matter."

In 1992, Malo told NPR that his widespread influences weren't always understood or appreciated in his South Florida hometown, but he said that his struggle to fit in taught him to trust his instincts. Malo had become the guitarist and lead singer for The Mavericks in 1989, alongside co-founders Robert Reynolds and Paul Deakin, and his roaring, sentimental voice defined the band's sound and remained its constant as the group's catalog moved from slow, tender ballads to full-throttle rock songs. In 1995, the band released its biggest hit with "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down," a swinging country song featuring an assist from Tex-Mex accordion legend Flaco Jimenez.

As the band grew in members and devoted listeners, The Mavericks continued to push the boundaries of American music, weaving a richly layered tapestry of textures and stories. With more than a dozen studio albums, The Mavericks collected praise and recognition from the Academy of Country Music, the Country Music Association and the Recording Academy. Although they took a hiatus for several years, Malo never stopped making music — and returned to his bandmates with renewed inspiration.

Following its 30th anniversary, the group released its first full-length Spanish album in 2020, aptly titled En Español. The record reimagined Latin standards and folklore-tinged popular tunes; it also made an implicit political statement about Latin music's contributions to American culture.

"In our own little way, if we could get somebody that perhaps is on the fence on issues and hears us singing in Spanish and perhaps reminds them of the beautiful cultures that make up what this country is trying to be and what it should be, so be it," Malo told NPR at the time. "Yeah, I'm OK with that."

The following year, the Americana Music Association recognized The Mavericks with the Trailblazer Award. In 2024, the band released its last studio album, Moon & Stars. The release coincided with news of Malo's cancer diagnosis, which he discussed openly with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe.

Before being hospitalized last week, Malo had been scheduled to perform with The Mavericks at a pair of tribute concerts held this past weekend at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Over 30 artists, including Patty Griffin, Jim Lauderdale and Steve Earle, still gathered to pay tribute to Malo, with some of the proceeds of the night going to the cancer prevention organization Stand Up To Cancer.

According to his spokesperson, though Malo was too ill to attend, the concert was streamed to his hospital room Friday night.

Copyright 2025 NPR

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has mostly blocked efforts to investigate misconduct within its ranks, according to the county inspector general, who announced his retirement Tuesday after 12 years on the job.

In an open letter, Max Huntsman cited examples of how the county has thwarted his efforts to watchdog the department, which in the past has been plagued with accusations that deputies use excessive force and lie on the job.

Huntsman said one example is former Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s misuse of criminal enforcement powers to discredit critics, such as opening an investigation into former County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.

Villanueva was sheriff from 2018 to 2022.

“My requests for investigation were rejected,” Huntsman’s letter reads. “Even after receiving an official subpoena, the Sheriff’s Department has failed to turn over records regarding the improper surveillance.”

He added: “Sometimes members of the public wonder if frightening new surveillance techniques will be used for improper purposes under the guise of criminal investigation. Sadly, the answer is yes.”

Before becoming inspector general in 2013, Huntsman, 60, was a deputy district attorney who specialized in public corruption. He told LAist on Tuesday that the inspector general job wasn’t something he wanted initially.

“I didn’t want to go work for politicians,” he said. “But the need to provide some kind of independent reporting and analysis was significant.”

The Sheriff’s Department issued a statement saying it valued the Office of the Inspector General and all county oversight bodies and that it wished Huntsman and his family well in his retirement.

The department said it “continues to make great strides in advancing the department in a transparent manner.”

LAist also reached out to the county CEO and county counsel for comment, but they declined.

After George Floyd

In the letter, Huntsman says the state of California has come a long way in strengthening the power of local law enforcement oversight bodies, in part because of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

After widespread protests — and lobbying by Huntsman — the state provided authority to inspectors general to enforce subpoenas requiring law enforcement agencies to hand over documents and authorized external investigation of police misconduct, including deputy gang conduct.

The Sheriff’s Department — backed by county lawyers — has resisted.

“Los Angeles County may not follow those laws, but it will not be able to avoid them forever,” Huntsman wrote. “The county refuses to require the photographing of suspected gang tattoos in secretive groups that the undersheriff has identified as violating state law.”

“Just a few weeks ago, we requested some information regarding an investigation, and a pair of commanders refused to give it to us,” Huntsman said in an interview with LAist.

Origin of the office 

The Inspector General’s Office was created by the county Board of Supervisors in 2013 in response to a scandal that included former Sheriff Lee Baca covering up the abuses of jail inmates.

Baca went to federal prison.

Since then, the office has issued dozens of reports with recommendations for improving living conditions inside jails that some have described as “filthy,” stopping abuses of juveniles inside juvenile halls and providing shower privacy for inmates as part of the requirements under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

“All of these abuses were reported by the Office of Inspector General and recommendations were ignored,” Huntsman wrote. Often, it took court orders to enact change.

“When we first blew the whistle on the torturous chaining of mentally ill prisoners to benches for 36 hours at a time, it was only a court order that ended the practice,” he wrote. “Time and time again, this pattern repeated itself.”

Huntsman wrote the county has permitted the Sheriff’s Department to block oversight and defunded the Office of Inspector General by removing a third of its staff.

“It's not surprising the county has driven out two successive chairs of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission,” he wrote.

“Government always claims to value transparency and accountability, but shooting the messenger is still the most common response to criticism,” Huntsman wrote.

Despite setbacks, Huntsman values work 

Huntsman told LAist on Tuesday that he was proud of his career as a public servant.

“I’ve really enjoyed the work and I’m sad to have it end,” he said.

It’s a sentiment he echoed in his letter, adding that despite the setbacks and roadblocks, he was proud of the people with whom he shared the office.

“It has been my honor to work with a talented, brave and tireless group of public servants to ensure that the public knows what its government is doing,” he wrote.

He noted the inspector general’s reports are fact-checked by the office and public.

“When government abuses occur, they are sometimes kept secret, but that is no longer the case for much of what is happening in Los Angeles County,” Huntsman wrote. “What you do about it is up to you.,”

Huntsman’s last day is Friday.

Topline:

The backstory: Last month, the council's Transportation Committee voted to bring a proposal forward to implement a policy change that allows the city to impound and immediately destroy abandoned or inoperable RVs worth less than $4,000. The change is inspired by new state law AB 630, which was created to prevent previously impounded RVs from ending back up on the street.

The motion, authored by Councilmember Traci Park, reports that abandoned RVs pose as public and safety hazards.

What's next: Councilmember Nithya Raman requested that an implementation plan be presented to the council's public safety and housing and homelessness committees.

Go deeper: L.A. pushes policy to make it easier to remove RVs from city streets.