The Smell of Roasting Cacao on a Street Where Everyone Left

Sehwa-ri is a small settlement on the eastern edge of Jeju Island, South Korea, and one of its quiet streets smells nutty, warm, faintly bitter. Most of the storefronts here once stood empty. The young people had gone to Seoul, to Busan, anywhere with jobs.

Then someone started roasting cacao.

Kim Jung-ah, CEO of Cacao Family, runs Cocoha, a bean-to-bar operation that imports directly from Guatemala and processes everything on-site. According to Seoul Economic Daily's recent profile, the company imported seven tons of cacao last year, making it the second-largest cacao importer in South Korea, behind only Lotte.

Two Villages, One Problem

Kim's path to cacao began in Guatemala around 2007, where she taught music while her spouse taught computing. What struck her was not the chocolate itself but the economics behind it. Indigenous farmers grew cacao, a crop with centuries of cultural significance, yet could not support their families. Children left. Villages emptied.

In Guatemala, cacao was a treasure of a resource, but farming could not support a living, so families sent their children away. In Jeju, too, I grew up hearing that if you did not study you would end up diving for seafood and farming carrots.

Kim Jung-ah

Rural Bulgaria faces the same arithmetic: aging populations, youth exodus, farming that no longer sustains a household. The Rhodopes, the Strandzha, the northwest all know this story. Kim faced that arithmetic in 2011, came back to Jeju anyway, and decided to stay.

Craft as Economic Engine

Kim's answer was not to romanticise farming but to build a business around it. Cacao Family sources beans directly, roasts them in Sehwa-ri, and sells finished products. Cacao caramel accounts for roughly half of total revenue. Seventy percent of sales happen online. The company posted 1.6 billion won (approximately €1.1 million) in revenue in the first half of 2026, with a full-year target of 3 billion won.

Cacao Family is not a charity project. It is a business built on craft principles: direct sourcing, on-site processing, story-driven products.

The Village as Product

In 2023, Cacao Family launched "Around the World in Sehwa-ri," a programme that now includes sixteen local businesses. Each shop was paired with a country's culinary or craft tradition: Turkish kaymak, German charcuterie, French desserts, a Japanese izakaya, Korean mother-of-pearl work, American-style pizza.

At an ordinary restaurant you eat and that is the end of it. But on this world tour you hear why the owner started making this food and what kind of life they have lived. The aim is to make visitors like the person rather than the shop.

Kim Jung-ah

A partnership with Ottogi produced Jin Ramen Caramel and Curry Caramel. A Muji pop-up brought nineteen Sehwa-ri shops together for a fundraiser that raised 125 million won (roughly €85,000) in twenty-five days. Smaller merchants who had never sold online learned to set up digital storefronts.

Stories You Can Take Home

At the end of September, Cacao Family and its neighbours will release six chocolates, each carrying the story of a specific Sehwa-ri shop. One is developed with Red Rocket, a local pizza restaurant. Another tells the story of Cafe Bean Gwangdeok, which makes oatmeal vegan coffee. A third is a jambon chocolate created with Charcuterie Dogam.

Фото: Виктор Младенов

The chocolates are a kind of content product, made so tourists can take Sehwa-ri's stories home with them. At the same time, they will serve as a new source of revenue for small business owners who find it hard to develop products of their own.

Kim Jung-ah

A chocolate bar is not just a chocolate bar when it carries a narrative. It becomes a reason to remember a place, to return, to tell someone else.

What Sehwa-ri Reveals

The model is specific to Kim's vision, Jeju's geography, and years of patient work. It cannot be copied wholesale. But the underlying logic applies anywhere rural communities are losing people: craft plus origin plus community equals a reason to stay.

That is the romantic version. The accounts put it more plainly - the company has been profitable since the start of 2025, and the target for 2026 is twenty tons of beans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Cacao Family's business model?

A: Cacao Family imports cacao beans directly from Guatemala, roasts and processes them on-site in Sehwa-ri, Jeju, and sells finished products primarily online. Their flagship product, cacao caramel, accounts for about 50% of revenue, with 70% of total sales coming through digital channels.

Q: How does the "Around the World in Sehwa-ri" programme work?

A: Launched in 2023, the programme pairs sixteen local shops with international culinary or craft traditions that match each business's character. The goal is to create a narrative experience where visitors connect with shop owners personally, encouraging return visits to the village rather than one-time transactions.

Q: What makes Sehwa-ri's approach different from typical rural revitalisation efforts?

A: Rather than relying on subsidies or tourism campaigns, Sehwa-ri's model centres on profitable craft businesses that collaborate across the village. Story-driven products, direct sourcing, and community partnerships create multiple revenue streams for small merchants who would otherwise struggle to develop products independently.