Moinhos do Poço Verde

Moinhos’ story is directly linked with the cocoa industry. They were chosen by the Castro Loboreiro’s chocolate factory (”Carabel”) to produce their wonderful products. To this day we are yet to find out what motivated Domingos António Alves, founder of the company, to produce these tasty chocolates. However we can state that such action helped Castro Laboreiro gain notoriety throughout the region.
After his death, the sons Abílio and Germano carried out his father´s endeavours improving the business through direct sales in their store and travelling to nearby fairs and town markets in order to increase liquidity and promote the brand.
The year was 1920 and the brothers were selling their products in a fair created in honour of Nossa Senhora da Peneda. A lady from a nearby town (Melgaço) made her way towards the brother´s stand to buy the chocolates that she loved so much in order to offer them as gifts to her family members. Unfortunately the brothers were sold out and didn’t have enough chocolates for the woman to buy. Germano, being the gentleman that he was, vowed to bring the chocolates himself directly to her home once he and his brother were done producing the next batch. The gesture was regarded in such high esteem by the woman that a relationship grew and they ended up marrying on the 25th of December, that same year.
Moinhos do Poço Verde came into action, in 1946, when the increasingly high cost of coal was costing the brother’s company too much money and, since electricity wasn’t easily available at the time in Castro Laboreiro, the solution was to resort to hydric energy. Despite some difficulties in transporting the raw materials to the location, Moinhos do Poço Verde were, from that day, the main location for cocoa extraction, production and transformation for the Carabel company. There are still some elements today that report to those days such as the millstones used to grind the cocoa beans and the waterpaths beneath the buildings used to power the mill.