Meet the maker
Baianí
About Baianí
Baianí is the name of a deity in an African religion who rebuilt his kingdom from the ground, and who was also present in the history and culture of the native state of Bahia in Brazil. After their family cacao farms were taken over by Witches’ Broom as children, husband-and-wife duo Tuta and Juliana Aquino named their bean-to-bar chocolates after Baianí as a true ‘Phoenix rising from the ashes’ story.
The pair started to make bean-to-bar chocolate using cacao from Juliana’s family farm in 2016, after a friend suggested Juliana use her recently acquired skills from culinary school to make chocolate – Juliana fell in love with the process, and by 2017, the pair were making their bars in their “chocolate lab”, which was based in a cottage behind their home in São Paulo. Since 2022, the pair have opened a small café at their factory and increased their team numbers to 10 dedicated employees.
How they became makers…
Tuta and Juliana were childhood friends, both coming from fourth generation cacao growers in the state of Bahia, Brazil. After spending their childhoods on cacao farms, Tuta moved to New York to pursue a career as a producer and mix engineer in the music industry, while Julianna was pursuing an impressive career as a singer and working with some of Bahia’s best known musicians. The pair reconnected and got married, and decided to move from New York back to their home turf in Bahia. After releasing two solo albums, Juliana turned her attention back to her roots and focused on her father’s farm, Fazenda Santa Rita in Vale Potumuju. In 2012, Tuta began devoting his time to improving the methods and productivity of the farm, while Juliana focused on her gastronomy degree – soon, Juliana was experimenting with making bean-to-bar chocolate from the cacao grown at her family farm, and Baianí was born.
Baianí’s Sourcing
Baianí own their own farm called Vale Potumuju in Bahia, Brazil, and take a lot of pride and care with their processes – all the way from planting new trees with unique varieties to harvesting, fermenting, drying, ageing, and making their chocolate. This means that the team at Baianí have an amazingly in-depth understanding of the characteristics of the cacao harvested and processed at Vale Potumuju, which allows them to better manage the transformation process of the beans into their wonderful bars.
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