Our History
Meet Dr.Winthrop Harewood, a retired veterinarian, affectionately known as Win or Doc.
Prior to retirement, Win worked as a senior lecturer at the School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, of The University of The West Indies (UWI).
For over 25 years, he taught ruminant medicine, offered professional advice to key stakeholders in the local dairy industry and provided much need needed veterinary services to dairy farmers.
He began his transition from cows to cocoa by starting a retirement-hobby farm growing cacao and tree crops in Tableland, the ancestral home of his father.
In 2020, beans from the farm earned 2nd place in the 2021 National Cocoa Awards(NCA). His bean sample represented Trinidad and Tobago at the 2021 Edition of the global Cocoa of Excellence Programme in Paris to compete for an International Cocoa Award.
The NCA panelists found his bean sample to have a good balance between bright fruit acidity, fresh, browned fruit and floral notes. There was a mild sweet finish with balanced, mild bitterness and astringency, with moderate basal cocoa flavour.
Win genuinely enjoys growing cocoa, and takes great pride in doing his best. He felt honoured, surprised and humbled by his success in the 2021 NCA Competition.
Motivated by this success, and the realisation that such international recognition will create a demand for his beans from craft chocolate makers and chocolatiers world-wide, and the increasing demand for fine flavour chocolates, he formalised the farm’s operations to enable output of more value-added products along the cacao value chain.
“The broad goal of Roods and Perches is to establish a sustainable bean-to -bar operation producing chocolate and cocoa-based confectionaries. He aims to increasing annual production from the farm, using agroforestry and organic best practices.”
Roods & Perches Cocoa Estate 