Steelgrass Chocolate Farm

The tour was an absolute delight, made so by an entertaining and knowledgeable guide. We had a good sampling of local fruits, vegetables, and chocolate. The 3 hours flew by as we were thoroughly entertained by variety of historical and personal stories. I would say that if you are strictly into chocolate and agriculture you may not like this tour. If you are looking for something different, entertaining, and relaxing, this is perfect diversion from the beach activities. The tour is pricey but we found the entertainment value well worth it. It is better to book this tour with a few days left in Hawaii, as some of the fruit/​vegetable information is useful when navigating the local farmers markets. We will definitely recommend this tour as one o the activities on the island and would love to come back in the future. Booking this tour through Expedia will save you some money on the price of admission.

If you take the time to talk to the family owned business, you will see their passion and love for what they do. They love their kids and understand the balance between giving and receiving from the land.
It’s a beautiful place to go learn and experience Kauai.

Chocolate is great food — the thought of visiting a chocolate farm was too much for us to resist. Our children (ages 5 – 9) love chocolate also, so on our recent Kauai trip my wife and I dragged everyone out for the 3-​hour tour. In short we loved it. The kids had fun tasting all the (mostly new) fruits and chocolates and we learned a tremendous amount about tropical fruits, plants, and the history of chocolate. We also learned about the chocolate making process (all theory, no hands on). Tour guide Evan was great and easily handled the questions from the guests, although there were not technical questions lobbed his way. I thought the kids might start to fall apart with all the education, but nope. We kept moving along and experiencing new stuff to keep them engaged.
All in all, we spend about 10 minutes starting the tour, about 1 hour on the grounds tour and fruit tasting, and about 1.5 hours on chocolate tasting and discussion. We probably tasted 10 or 11 fruits and 13 chocolates. We also had an opportunity to taste the fresh chocolate cacao straight from the tree. I enjoyed this very much, but it was hit and miss with the group. Still, an excellent experience as you go through the process to see the taste emerge from the fresh fruit to the fermented and separated nibs. It was a very unique experience and gives me a new perspective on chocolate — much like the subtle variations in wine. It’s true, I could have purchased a dozen premium chocolates from a grocer and taste them myself for less money (and more chocolate), but I would never have developed the appreciation for the fruit, the process, and the taste variations in the final product. I would highly recommend this tour.
On the negative side, this is three hours spent outdoors in a tropical environment. Expect heat, rain, bugs. Smartly, the tour includes the use of a Deet free mosquito repellent. It worked well enough for us to buy more for the rest of our stay on the island. Our kids were perfectly happy spending this time outside but on another day, perhaps not — it may not be for every family.

We brought our kids here and they were extremely bored. Warning: do not make the same mistake we did! The tour guide, while friendly, talked mostly about history and not much about chocolate making. The owner of the farm seemed mainly interested in selling stuff. Not worth the time nor $$ for families. Might be better for couples or visitors without children.

Ok so I’m only going to give 2 stars, just because we did not get more than 1 ½ hours into 3 hour trip. Don’t bring little kids to this place, we took our 2 ½ year old daughter with us, nothing for them to do we ended up leaving. The tour guide I don’t remember his name from Massachusetts, very informative lots of history on how things were made and how it got here, wish we could have stayed longer but for kids no way, go someplace else. The grounds are amazing and the natural snakes were refreshing. The $ 75 bucks per person is a bit steep, we did get a discount of $ 15 per person and the kids get in free, up to a certain age. Make sure you use the bug spray and take the umbrella too.

This place doesn’t even deserve one star– how dare to call it a tour? $ 75.00 for this miserable experience? I am going to report this place to BBB– a total fraud!!!

Went on the tour towards the end of my visit. It was 3 hours long and I wished I went at the beginning of my vacation. The tour guides provided useful information about local fruits, vegetation/​landscape, Kapaa history, and their farm. They also provided tips for places to visit (check out JO2 if you are a foodie). They were very personable and I got to sample chocolate from other parts of the world (as well as cool fruits & vegetables). Overall, great experience.
Note: when purchasing chocolate check the expiration date and make sure you are comfortable with it if it’s considered «expired». I spoke with one of the tour guides about my «expired» purchase and he assured me that chocolate doesn’t really expire– he insisted I keep it to try and comped me another chocolate bar of my choice: long story short he was totally right :-)

Went on the tour with my 81 yr old Mom and her younger sister. It rained but they were prepared with big umbrellas. Very informative, lots of taste testing. Well worth the cost. Fun experience!

Great tour… great chocolate! Well worth the trip. Enjoyed learning about the farm as well as the chocolate tasting. Best of all, I was able to purchase some chocolate not only from the Steelgrass but from another company that provided one of the other samples. Love it! That was in 2013. In 2014, we happened to be eating lunch at The Green Pig and Steelgrass Chocolate Farm was on the same property offering samples and sales. How awesome was it that I was able to purchase more chocolate from this purveyor of chocolate! Can’t wait to go back to Kauai and get more!

i had the pleasure of going on tour with steelgrass farm. they’re located in wailua homesteads, off of olohena road. it’s kind of tricky to find their property, but tony gives clear directions to the place from where you’re coming from.
once you arrive, they point you to the area of where you should park. everyone checks in with the guide (in our case, brad). after everyone was checked in, brad introduced himself and gave us our first (one of eleven) sampling of dark chocolate.
this tour is good for all ages. there were seniors there, and some younger childres (as young as 6!) there is some very leisurely walking on this tour. brad offered us some umbrellas because it was kind of misty as well as bamboo walking sticks. if you need more assistance, they do have a jeep you can hop in and they’ll take you down the hill. brad explained all of the fruits and plants they grow on their property. we were able to taste several delicious fruit that were in season. the tahitian lime was paired with ko (sugarcane) and they nicely complimented eachother. further down the walking path, we tried longan and rambutan, which are cousins of the lychee fruit. brad stopped to show us the papayrus plant and demonstrated how they used to make paper out of it. next, we tried eggfruit, lilikoi (passionfruit), chiku (like chicle gum), and watermelon radish.
we got down to their cacao trees and brad split open a pod. it was neat seeing all the beans and trying them in their raw form.
then, it was time for the chocolate tasting! i had never done a chocolate tasting, and wasn’t sure what to expect. now i think of it like a wine tasting, except with chocolate. we tried ten different dark chocolates from around the world. brad was very informative and knew so much about chocolate, how it was made, all of the ingredients and so much more.
they gave us a sheet to write down our thoughts on each individual chocolate. included on the sheets were words to describe what you might taste, and to encourage you to think of some words, too. an example of these words are: earth, fresh cut grass, pungent, roasted, honey, berries, caramel, coffee, tart, tobacco, flowers, citrus, smoky, spicy, wood, etc.
i enjoyed having the chocolate melt in my mouth so i could get the best sense of what it taste like. the darkness percentages were all different. i never stopped to notice the different flavors in chocolate before.
after we were done with all ten, we went down the list and were told what each chocolate was. it was a really neat experience and i had such a wonderful time!

What a great tour. our guide was very knowledgeable. Would recommend for young and old.

For a chocolate farm that just started not too long ago I think this one had a lot to offer! What a beautiful place to visit to not only learn about the history of chocolate but different fruits that are on the property.
The chocolate tasting was pretty neat with the way the guides make you try to guess which one it is. The guide Brad is wonderful and very knowledgeable about the property as well as the chocolate making process.
I would recommend this one to people who want a relaxing but enjoyable day of learning about plants, fruit and yes you guessed it chocolate! Oh and who cares about a few mosquito bites… just use some bug spray or itch cream! Lol!

As a self-​professed chocoholic this tour was a must for me! Overall it was an enjoyable experience, but as others have noted it is overpriced at $ 60/​person.
Unlike others, I was not surprised by the fruit tastings not did I expect a tour of a chocolate processing plant. This is a chocolate farm and clearly described as such.
I was very happy to have the opportunity to taste so many tropical fruits. I have no doubt this was one of the few opportunities for me to do so. Like others, I was surprised that this was treated similar to a wine tasting, but I enjoyed it! I’d never paid that much attention to the flavors of various chocolates before. I definitely had a few favorites but was not willing to spend $ 10/​bar!
Regardless our guides, Brad and Tatiana, were fantastic! I can’t say enough good about them. They were knowledgable, very entertaining, and accommodating! y

Got the chance to experience this chocolate tour on my honeymoon. I actually thought it was well worth the money. I mean the place is hard to find but they warn you of that when you book with them. It was a fun tour where we got to taste not only chocolate, but also some different fruits they grow on the farm. The chocolate tasting itself allows you to taste 11 different types of chocolate and discuss how they taste, where they came from, and why they might have fruity hints or things like that. We got to know the people on the tour with us too. It’s a small farm so don’t expect anything to formal or fancy, but if you’ve just looking for an interesting thing to do on the island it’s worth checking out.

Not what we expected. More than half of the «chocolate tour» was waiting for late people (finding the place is rather difficult), walking around the mosquito infested grounds looking at non-​native tropical plants, tasting non-​native tropical fruits, and talking about the farm. Despite covering myself with bug spray, I had at least 8 extremely itchy mosquito bites before the chocolate part even started. The plants and fruits were interesting, but would have been more-​so if we had known to expect most of the tour to feature that.
The chocolate part of the tour was much better, but again, not what I’d expected. I thought we would see the whole chocolate making process. Instead we saw cocoa plants, got to try the raw stuff, and learned a bit about growing it, which was great. Then an accelerated verbal description of stuff that happens, and behold, somehow you have chocolate! We never saw the process, like some kind of chocolate factory. The next thing we knew it was time to taste chocolate. Ok…
Chocolate tasting. Seems to me you just cram it in your mouth and chew. (haha) Turns out there’s SOOO much more to it than that. I very much enjoyed this part of the tour! They took us through something similar to wine tasting, but for chocolate. Wow, who knew? I’d like to do that part again, being sure to skip all the rest.
Paying $ 120 to drive halfway around the island, get a mass of mosquito bites, and look at non-​native tropical plants, and spend some of that time tasting and learning about chocolate was not great. I’d rate it 5 stars if they chopped the price and time in half, showed us the whole chocolate making process, and took us through the tasting part. None of the rest.

We enjoyed the Chocolate tour during our trip to Kauai.
It was nice that kids under 12 were free, making an affordable family tour.
The 3 hours are spent mainly walking down a path and sampling some fruits from the local trees. Talking about how the farm got its name (from the Steelgrass/​bamboo that was grown on the farm) At the bottom of the hill, we started to talk about chocolate, first off was the Cocoa trees. We then proceed to a tasting tent where they showed us how chocolate is made with some small kitchen appliances. Next came 10 small samples of chocolate, distinguishing from different makers and countries.
The tour was entertaining, but not exactly what I had expected for $ 60/​pp (kids under 12 free)

Great chocolate/​cocoa knowledge and a fabulous tour of the grounds. The tasting was fun and informative. We enjoyed seeing the many tropical plants and tastes of some different fruits and vegetables. Definitely worth the drive.

A Total Ripoff! I spent $ 120 for my husband and I to waste 3 hours of our time in Kauai going on this «chocolate» tour. My husband, horticultural nerd that he is loved the prospect of touring a real chocolate farm and was looking forward to tasting Kauai grown chocolate. He and I were both sadly disappointed. The hubby wanted more Chocolate information, more plant information, and was seriously looking forward to tasting Kauai grown chocolate. I was just upset that I could have spent $ 120 on so many other options during our stay in Kauai.
The three hour tour (that’s $ 20 per hour per person, mind you) consists of a tour of an organic botanical garden/​farm, tropical fruit tasting, a view of cacao pods growing on their few Cacao Trees, and an hour spent in a mosquito infested tent area eating 10 (yes only 10!) dime-​sized portions of chocolate bars that I can get at Whole Foods without all of the hassle, and expense.
The one positive of this horrific experience was the tour guides. Those ladies work very hard leading the group of 12 – 14 people on this sham of a tour. They maintain control of the group, answer questions to the best of their ability (they even stumped my husband in his «Jeopardy-​like» knowledge of plant life), and they did it all with great care and attention to detail. The only Kudos for this place goes to them. I understand that for the guides this is their job and they do the best they can with what they have.
Save your money and your time and go to the Foodland Market up at Princeville. They have a few gourmet chocolate bars available. Spend your money there, eat the chocolate in your room and save yourself some cash. You seriously need it in Hawaii for other stuff.

I was pretty excited to go on a «chocolate tour,» but didn’t really expect *SO* many children. I guess it kind of makes sense. My husband and I *loved* touring the fruit trees — and getting to try so many delicious and fresh fruit. The tour guides were very friendly and informative as well! I would have loved if it was just a property and fruit tour. haha
The chocolate part was so-​so. We got to see&hear about their cocoa trees and then spent about an hour in the «tasting tent,» trying 10 different dark chocolates — but they were made elsewhere in the world. A bit anti-​climactic if you ask me. But if you have kids, they seem to enjoy it!

Definitely a home tour! They do offer mosquito wipes when needed. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood. The husband loved it. He got to try various fruits that were new to him … And he felt the girls were quite entertaining. We did leave purchasing some chocolate for our «health’s sake» :) great tour for families, chocolate lovers, plant enthusiasts, and the senior tourists.
It did feel good to put money back into restoring nature in kauai, and it looked like they gave back to, as the local art school get internships to work with the bamboo and papyrus.