I’m delighted to bring you this interview with Lan Phan bean-to-bar chocolate maker of 9th & Larkin Chocolate located in San Franciso, CA. From their lovely packaging to their delicious chocolate bars, 9th & Larkin is a delight to have in one’s own chocolate stash!
In this interview we get to learn more about 9th & Larkin’s bar wrapper design, Lan Phan’s creative inspiration and so much more.
Enjoy!
Lan Phan & Brian of 9th & Larkin
Victoria Cooksey: What is your first memory involving chocolate (before knowing about craft chocolate)?
Lan Phan: My first memory with chocolate was probably when I was 4 years old, tried making chocolate milk with a piece of bonbon. After that was teatime with my mom. It was very simple, just a little cup of tea, and a little piece of chocolate or a tiny cookie, and I would retell her story or book she read to me the previous day. I love teatime with my mom.
VC: When and how did you become interested in making bean-to-bar chocolate?
LP: 2014, I was working my day job as an analyst. There was one project that I interacted with lots of people in manufacturing startups companies in the SF Bay Area. They were making all sorts of things, from electric skateboards to personal devices. They were all excited about what they were doing and they were full of energy. The idea of making something tangible was really inspiring, it made me want to make something by myself, with my hands. So with curiosity of how to make chocolate from scratch and the love of eating chocolate :D, we started experimenting in our home kitchen soon after.
Bean-to-bar Chocolate Making
VC: What’s your process for choosing a cacao origin to experiment with?
LP: We usually get samples of beans and test to see how we like them, sometimes out of curiosity when we see a new origin and wonder how they taste, other times because we tasted bars made with that origin, liked it and wanted to see what we can bring out from these beans.
VC: Your bar packaging is always so lovely. What was the inspiration for the colors and design?
LP: The design was inspired by the cacao pod. It wasn’t a random splash of ink. We painted a cacao pod, and rolled it on a paper to create these patterns. The patterns are then transferred to the wrapper by screen printing. The colors reflected the tasting profile of each origin, such as the bright copper patterns on the Tanzania bar reflects the bright chocolate background, with cherries, berries notes. We tried to choose the color as close as possible to match with the flavor profile of the beans.
VC: Your chocolate bars always look fantastic! Any tips on tempering or bar mold prep for improving the shine on the finish bar?
LP: Thank you! 🙂 I always polish the moulds and warm them up so the surface is similar temperature to the tempered chocolate before pouring the chocolate into the mould.
Tempered Chocolate Bars
VC: What’s has been your greatest challenge with making bean to bar chocolate?
LP: From a business standpoint, the biggest challenge is probably how to get people to know about us. We are so small, and don’t even have our own store that people can just stop by, taste and shop, so it can be very tricky. I remember in 2020 when Covid started and so many makers said on Instagram that their sales dropped significantly and they had to rely solely on their online store, that is actually our normal. From a technical standpoint, it is tempering. After 5 years, I still learn something new about it and probably still far from being able to fully understand the tempering machine that we use yet. I still get this “scratching head, why moment” sometimes.
VC: How do you like to enjoy chocolate on an average day? How does that change on holidays and special occasions?
LP: Just a little piece here and there. I consume less chocolates than Brian, he snacks on chocolate throughout the day. During the holidays and special occasions, it would be a bit more as besides eating chocolates, we have cakes, cookies that we make with chocolate. We also buy chocolates as gifts to each other, haha, yes we make chocolates but still buy lots of chocolates for ourselves. And we’ll try all of these chocolates when opening our presents on Christmas Day.
VC: What continues to inspire and drive you forward with chocolate making?
LP: I find chocolate fascinating. It’s never bored me. From tackling different harvest with, sometimes, quite different flavor profiles, to how to keep chocolate safe during shipping in summer. It never gets old. And through making chocolate, I get to learn a lot of new things that otherwise I wouldn’t have a chance to, and get to meet so many wonderful people. I enjoy what I am doing, and that is very important to me.
9th & Larkin Chocolate Bars
VC: At the end of the day what does chocolate mean to you? To me, chocolate is not merely food or snack. It is a fond memory of my childhood. It gave me comfort and energy on the way home from late night class. And now when I get to make it, it is the connection between me and my home country. Being able to use Vietnamese beans to make chocolates here in San Francisco means a lot to me. It is a way that I can share a little of my homeland with you and everyone.
When I dream of desserts in bar form, or a white chocolate bar with cheese, Foxglove Chocolate pops into my mind first! In fact, if I was asked to make a list of inclusion bar makers to watch and learn from by tasting their bars Foxglove would most definitely be on that list!
In this interview Linnea Surla of Foxglove Chocolate, located in Portland, Oregon, shares the inspiration for how she picked the name Foxglove for her craft chocolate and we gain insight into her cheese in chocolate bars thoughts.
Linnea Surla of Foxglove Chocolates with Foxgloves
Enjoy!
Victoria Cooksey: How long have you been making bean to bar chocolate and how has your view on chocolate changed since the beginning of your journey?
Linnea Surla: I started making chocolate in the summer of 2018, after taking a class with Mackenzie at Map Chocolate. The class really ignited something in me, and I spent the summer practicing what I had learned. I had my first pop up sale in November of that year!
As far as my view on chocolate changing – I have a much greater awareness of the social impact that chocolate has. I am still finding my voice in this – I still have so much to learn, but the least I can do is encourage customers to think about the impacts their purchases make beyond buying from a local maker. Transparency is extremely important to me, and supporting everyone in that chain all the way back to the farmer. People care about where their other food comes from – vegetables, how the animals they may be eating were treated…the same care should be taken with their chocolate choices.
Foxglove Chocolate’s Flan Bar
VC: How did you decide on Foxglove as the name of your chocolate?
LS: Gardening is another big hobby of mine. I love hollyhocks, but hollyhock chocolate is a lot of c’s and o’s! Foxgloves grow prolifically in the Pacific Northwest and I liked the way it sounded. I looked up Foxglove chocolate to see if anyone already had the name and learned there is a variety of Foxglove called a milk chocolate foxglove. It seemed like a sign to me and the rest was history!
VC: What has been the trickiest ingredient to work with or most difficult dessert to capture in bar form and why?
LS: On a trip to Hawaii I was very inspired by something I tried called Li Hing Mui. It translates as “travelling plum,” and was originally a salted preserved plum that was brought to Hawaii by the Chinese immigrants who came to work on the sugar cane plantations. It’s now ground into a powder that is a condiment on fruit, candy, and shaved ice among other things, adding sweet, salty and sour flavor. I decided I wanted to make a pineapple li hing bar. The pineapple flavor turned out a bit muted from the milk powder, and the li hing mui flavor didn’t come through as much as I wanted. I tried again, with a plum bar with li hing cherries, and the flavor popped like I wanted it to!
Foxglove Chocolate’s Li Hing Bar
VC: Is there a difference in difficulty level to create a bar with dairy versus one with plant-based milk?
LS: Sometimes, but not necessarily. If not using dairy milk I have to think about what type of plant based milk I want to use and how that will affect the flavor and texture of the bar. It’s fun to experiment!
VC: Your bars with cheese in them are so interesting. How tricky is it to balance the salty, sweet and savory elements when it comes to making chocolate?
LS: At my “day job” I work with cheese, beer, and wine. I am a certified cheese professional, and I love cheese! You may not think of cheese and chocolate pairing well together, but they really do! A lot of popular cheeses like cheddar or gouda have a sweet element to them – it made me wonder how it would work to make bars with these elements combined. The truth is, with anything I make some people like it, some people don’t, and some people love it! I try to make things with intention that I like, and eventually the right people will find them. I love riding that fine line between sweet and savory, and pushing people’s boundaries for what chocolate can be. My cheese bars are appealing to those who might prefer something a little less sweet, or who are more experimental. I have ideas for more cheese bars – but not before making my next batch of caprese bars!
Foxglove Chocolate’s Caprese Bar
VC: What dessert do you dream of capturing into bar form that you haven’t tried yet?
LS: Ohhh, there’s always more to try – I really need to be better about writing them down! One that comes to mind is an old family recipe called “Cherries in the snow.” It’s kind of like a pavlova with a meringue shell that is filled with cream and topped with a cherry filling. It would be a fun holiday bar!
VC: Any favorite chocolate, food and/or beverage pairing you’d like to share?
LS: I love to pair a fruity bright white chocolate berry bar with rosé or pinot noir wine – like my strawberry balsamic bar or black and white bar (black currant white chocolate with black licorice). Yum!
Foxglove Chocolate’s Black & White Bar
Thank you so much for this interview Linnea Surla!
When thoughts turn to soothing, yet exciting inclusion bars Hogarth Chocolate comes to mind. While Hogarth Chocolate (craft chocolate made in New Zealand) makes lovely dark single-origin bars, the Gianduia, Buttered Toast & Sea Salt, Maple Walnut and now the new Anzac Biscuit bar satisfy the comfort dessert cravings within.
I always find each chocolate maker’s individual path to discovering cacao so fascinating. Karl Hogarth originally worked his way up becoming the skipper in his own trawler with a total of 20 years experience at sea. Next, he earned a business degree before traveling through several countries and eventually coming across cacao in Guatemala which lead to Karl learning how to make bean-to-bar chocolate.
Victoria Cooksey: Is there anything from your experience of being a skipper of your own trawler that has helped you with any challenges with making chocolate?
Karl Hogarth: Absolutely. Working at sea teaches you to be very resilient, flexible and creative. Things break all the time and you just have to come up with a solution on the spot or you could waste whole trip. So over the years I’ve sort of absorbed a lot of engineering knowledge which helps me problem solve in the chocolate factory.
VC: How has your thoughts on chocolate/chocolate making changed since starting Hogarth Chocolate?
KH: I don’t obsess over small details anymore. And I try not to go off on tangents as much. Like making complicated products that just add more problems. Definitely trying to keep it simple and focus on what we do best. And over the years I’ve come to realize that what I like isn’t necessarily what my customers like, so I need to focus more on them.
Bean to Bar Chocolate
VC: How would you as a maker want your bars to be viewed by someone who reviews chocolate, versus someone who is picking one up as a consumer?
KH: I guess the reviewer would be able to “unpack” the experience and put it into words, so a lot more attention to detail would be required, from receiving the bar, unwrapping, tasting, flavour journey, feelings etc etc.
VC: What are some of the challenges that people who are considering becoming bean-to-bar chocolate makers should be aware of?
KH: Well its different for everyone depending on what they plan to do, where they are located and who they are selling to. But I think the biggest challenge has always been to change your customers perception of what chocolate is and what it’s worth.
Buttered Toast and Sea Salt Bar
VC: What continues to inspire and drive you forward with chocolate making (especially when it comes to your inclusion bars)?
KH: Definitely finding new interesting flavours to wow our customers with, and we try to keep a New Zealand theme with our range so we are always looking for ways to showcase New Zealand, in chocolate.
Victoria Cooksey and Karl Hogarth at the 2018 Northwest Chocolate Festival
VC: The topic of how a bar’s outside wrapper looks is often discussed, but often the inside is not thought about-would you fill us in about how important the inside packaging is?
KH: Chocolate need to be protected from air, light, heat and moisture. If the outside packing isn’t doing all of those things then the inside layer needs to, and if the chocolate requires a long shelf life then it needs to do it very well. Then there is the matter of how easy the product is to fill or wrap from a functional perspective. A metal foil layer is required to block out light, and a plastic is required to block moisture, then it needs to be fully sealable to block air. At this stage our factory is small we have to pack everything by hand so we require a pouch style which is hand filled and sealed.
Anzac Biscuit Bar
VC: A discussion that keeps surfacing lately is about moving away from actual flavor notes to describe bars and instead move towards other expressions such as music, feelings and shapes; but why is chocolate’s actual flavor still important?
KH: People are already confused when chocolate notes are expressed the way it is in wine, because to most people chocolate just tastes like chocolate. And these descriptions are purely subjective, the recipient may not get the same experience. Best to keep it simple.
VC: What would you want the world to think of when experiencing craft chocolate from New Zealand?
KH: Just enjoy the chocolate, the experience and a little piece of New Zealand.
Frequently in interviews with chocolate makers, as well as some that I’ve conducted, the maker is asked what chocolate they most like to pair with a certain wine, beer, coffee, cheese and so forth. Then there are those chocolate connoisseurs who adamantly say wine does not pair with chocolate at all, while still others express enjoying various wine/chocolate combos. So, everyone has an opinion…what’s yours?
Over the years I have found some wine/chocolate pairings to be delightful while others to be terrible. But what if there was a way to make it easier? That thought, along with the inspirations I detail in the next paragraph, led to the inspiration to put together a series of 3 videos on this topic.
I had originally purchased 3 Ranger Chocolate bars that each featured a different sea salt because I thought that would be a fun video, but then Dick Taylor Chocolate posted a wine pairing guide where they paired a California Pinot Noir with their Fleur de Sel bar. Around that same time Raaka Chocolate posted a pairing guide that recommended sparkling wine with their Pink Salt bar. I attended a Brooks Winery’s Beyond Brooks online event (the event was gifted to me) and tasted Woodblock Chocolate’s salt bar with a Riesling and a Pinot Noir. I also thought about food and wine pairing recommendations from when I earned my Intermediate Wine Certificate through the International Sommelier Guild (details such as salty foods decreasing the perceptions of tannins in wine). All of this guided me to wonder if maybe salt could be the key to making wine and chocolate pairings work out a little more often.
Below you will find the 3 videos I made on this topic along with my tasting notes of the various bars and wines.
Spoiler Alert: Some of these pairings did work! I found the Pinot Noir to be the most hit and miss while the Cabernet Sauvignon worked better and I’d say the Champagne was a bit more successful than the Cab pairings. There was also a specific bar I tasted in all the videos that worked with all 3 wines, but I might wait on telling you that one!
While I tasted the wine and chocolate bars separately, the first time I try them as wine/chocolate combos is in these videos to give you my very first impressions.
I invite you to grab some sea salt dark chocolate bars and some wine and join along with each of the tastings as you watch these videos.
Enjoy!
*The links to all the bars tasted are listed at the end of this post.
Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Wine Pairings: Pinot Noir
In this 1st video I try Ranger Chocolate Alaska Salt bar, Dick Taylor Chocolate Fleur de Sel bar and Raaka Chocolate’s Pink Sea Salt bar with Erath 2019 Pinot Noir wine from Oregon.
Erath 2019 Pinot Noir Oregon
Nose of black cherry, vanilla, cream, hint of mint and new leather.
Tastes of black cherry, vanilla, red apple juice and mild spearmint.
Medium/high acidity.
Dick Taylor Fleur De Sel bar 73% Northern Blend of Cacao from Brazil and Madagascar
Notes of dark fruit, tobacco, caramel, coffee and lightly salty. A full-bodied bar.
This bar is a YES with this wine. The wine amplifies the salt in this bar and the cherry in the wine turns what I taste as dark fruit in the bar to more of a cherry note. This bar on it’s own has a mild bitterness, but with the wine that goes away.
Raaka Pink Salt Bar Peruvian Salt bar 71% Zorzal, Dominican Republic Cacao Unroasted Chocolate
Notes of cinnamon (none added), earthy and mild salt, but also a mildly acidic brightness.
This bar is a NO with this wine, in my opinion. The acidity in the wine is amplified in a way that wasn’t pleasant and cancels out the flavors of the chocolate bar. I enjoy them on their own, but not together.
Ranger Chocolate Alaska Sea Salt bar Pure Flake Sea Salt Ranger Makers Blended Cacao
Earthy and salty. A pleasant saltiness that build as the chocolate melts.
This combo is a MAYBE. I feel like some of the bar gets lost and I end up tasting mostly the wine.
Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Wine Pairings: Champagne
This 2nd video features Dick Taylor’s Fleur de Sel bar, Raaka’s Pink Sea Salt bar, Ranger’s Japan sea salt bar and Mayana’s Salted Caramels with Fleur de Sel all tasted with Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne.
Nicolas FeuillatteChampagne Reserve ExclusiveBrut
Nose of yeast, pear, vanilla, lemon curd and minerality.
Tastes of pear, lemon, yeast, light toast and lychee.
Dick Taylor’s Fleur de Sel bar is a YES to pair with this Champagne. The notes from the chocolate remain. It decreases some of the acidity in the Champagne, but over all it works.
Raaka’s Pink Salt bar is a MAYBE with this bubbly. Some of the bar notes come through, but it takes some of the acidity and flavor out of the Champagne.
Ranger Chocolate Japan Sea Salt bar Japanese Hana Flake Salt Cacao from Uganda
Notes of dark fruit and bread with salted butter.
This pairing is a MAYBE bordering on a NO. It turns the lemon note in the Champagne to much and ups the salt in the bar.
Mayana Salted Caramels with Fleur de Sel
The Mayana caramels tasted in this video were heart shaped since they were for Valentine’s Day, but they are normally square.
Tastes of buttery sea-salted caramel.
This pairing is a YES. The buttery notes of the caramel is amplified and the salt comes through followed by the notes of the Champagne.
Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Bar Wine Pairings: Cabernet Sauvignon
In this 3rd I taste J. Lohr Paso Robles 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon with craft salted dark chocolate bars by Dick Taylor Chocolate, Raaka Chocolate, Ranger Chocolate and Villakuyaya.
J.Lohr Paso Robles 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon
Nose of red currant, vanilla, cherry, mushroom and a touch of mint.
Tastes of plum, mushroom, vanilla and red currant.
Medium tannins. (Tannins are compounds called polyphenols that are found in grape skins and stems. The sensation of tannins dries out the mouth. If you are new to wine tasting think about if you’ve ever had a really strong tea, or a tea that was steeped a long time and the sensation you felt in your mouth when you tasted it. The tannic sensation is often described as astringency).
Dick Taylor’s Fleur de Sel bar and Raaka’s Pink Sea Salt bar were tasted with this video. (See notes earlier in this post).
Dick Taylor’s Fleur de Sel bar is a YES. I get the notes of the bar with the caramel notes actually increasing. The flavors of the wine come through and the tannins don’t fight with this pairing.
Raaka’s Pink Salt bar is a MAYBE/YES. I still get the flavors of the bar, but it does get somewhat muted. The flavors in the wine decrease a bit also, but over all kind of pleasant.
In this video I switched to a different Ranger Chocolate salted bar.
Ranger Chocolate Oregon Salt bar made with cacao from Peru
Notes of salt, cocoa and oak. Well balanced. Full-bodied. The salt stays present from the start to the finish.
This Ranger Oregon bar is a NO with this wine. This combo overly amplifies the mouthfeel of the tannins.
Villakuyaya Himalaya PinkSalt 80% Organic cacao from Esmeraldas-Ecuador
Notes of quinoa, lightly toasted grain, earthy and salt with a finish of coffee.
This Villakuyaya Himalaya Pink Salt bar is a MAYBE. The earthiness of the chocolate works, but some of the bar’s flavors are lost. This pairing adds oak notes to both the bar and the wine.
Spoiler Alert: If you watched all the videos you’ll already know this, but if you choose to go the read-only route the Dick Taylor Fleur de Sel bar worked well with all 3 wines and I felt it was the most scrumptious with the cabernet sauvignon.
I’m pleased that some of the pairings worked! Hopefully this brings you a step closer to enjoying wine with chocolate. I’d love to know your favorite pairings!
Thanks for reading and watching! Be sure to subscribe to my Youtube channel and check out my Instagram page!
Craft chocolate taster & reviewer, writer, wine taster and dessert creator. Certificates of Achievement in Chocolate Technique and Mastering Chocolate Flavor from Ecole Chocolat.
IWC (Intermediate Wine Certificate) from the International Sommelier Guild.
I’m not vegan, but I am an Essential Vegan Desserts course (Rouxbe) graduate.
Kim Wilson Good King Cacao (Photo Credit: Carlos Garcia)
While you have most likely tried a chocolate bar of some type, have you ever tasted a whole cacao bean? Kim Wilson of Good King Cacao works with farming communities to bring the healthy snack of roasted cacao beans that have been lightly caramelized with organic cane sugar and a variety of flavors for us all to enjoy. While these high fiber snacks are delicious they are also part of Kim’s goal of finding ways to increase the possibility of a living wage for cacao farmers.
My favorite flavor happens to be “Love” which is seasoned with vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and cardamom. A bonus of the cacao beans is that they won’t melt during the summer months or in your pocket!
I would like to personally thank Kim for the kindness she has always shown me and the chocolate community over the years.
Now let’s find out more about Kim’s cacao journey:
Victoria Cooksey: What lead you to be interested in the food/wine business and can you tell us some of your background prior to starting Good King?
Kim Wilson: In high school, I wanted to be the next Mrs. Field’s. I had dreams of my own shop and several of my own recipes (almost all including chocolate). In college, I realized the world didn’t need another cookie maven. So, when I was recruited by E. & J. Gallo Winery, I gladly accepted despite only having tried White Zinfandel prior to receiving my offer! I remained with Gallo for 11 years in various marketing and supply chain roles. They were a great company to work for – I had amazing colleagues and they also sponsored my MBA.
In the mid-2000’s, my faith was becoming increasingly important to me and I felt prompted to volunteer full-time “for a year” with an organization I had come to know and love – Repurposing Business with The Institute for Innovation, Integration and Impact. The mission of the organization is to integrate work and faith; to see our work as worship to God and an extension of our love for others. My “one-year” volunteer position eventually became paid and I stayed six years. It was there that I began to understand both God’s love for the world and its people, and business’ strategic role in tackling some of the world’s most complex problems.
In 2009, while with The Institute, I heard about the extensive bonded labor, child trafficking and unfair wages taking place in the chocolate industry. I wanted to be part of the solution.
In 2013, I stepped out and quite literally chose to take an uncharted path – ask me about the boa constrictor, hitch-hiking in the jungle and my hierarchy of bug “responses.” Neither the best business schools (Wharton & Kellogg) nor my corporate experience at the world’s largest winery could have prepared me for this.
Open Cacao Pod (Photo credit: Carlos Garcia)
VC: How did you decide on having a product of whole cacao beans instead of a chocolate bar type item?
KW: Since the beginning, our business goal has been to create more justice and equity in wages – especially at the cocoa farming community level. One way to do this is to create new foods and products that can be made in the growing communities themselves. But, we didn’t want to compete with chocolate makers (cocoa growers’ primary customers). And, we wanted products that could be made in their local context: often without reliable electricity, water or infrastructure.
Recently, I’ve also come to realize that I don’t think God made a mistake when He planted cocoa in hot, humid, tropical environments. It grows beautifully there! Maybe chocolate, as amazing as it is, wasn’t His plan A? Maybe there are myriad other equally amazing products yet to be discovered from this tasty and versatile superfood?! That gets me so excited.
VC: What are some of the health benefits of whole cacao?
KW: I’ve been surprised to discover that when you don’t process (or even “nibify”) cacao beans, they maintain A LOT more fiber (11g per serving or 39% of the RDV for our 80% cacao content flavors) and a little more protein. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure why this is. I can only tell you that it’s been consistent when we’ve nutrition tested our cacao beans over the years from both origins. This may not seem like a big deal, but in 2020, the FDA listed lack of fiber as “a nutrient of public health concern.” A peer-reviewed article from the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine explains, “Adequate intake of dietary fiber is associated with digestive health and reduced risk for heart disease, stroke, hypertension, certain gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.” Eating more fiber sounds like a great plan to me!
Though we haven’t specifically studied our antioxidant levels, we can safely assume it has all of the same benefits as dark chocolate – or maybe even more since we do less processing with the whole bean snacks.
VC: Prior to starting Good King what was your relationship with chocolate like? How has it changed?
KW: I have been a chocolate lover my whole life. In fact, I remember several people from the Repurposing Business organization being far more surprised about my career change into cocoa than were friends & family from my early years.
Interestingly, I think having a background in wine and then entering the cacao industry has significantly influenced how I experience and enjoy flavor. I never realized how much the two have in common! Prior to understanding the labor issues in cacao and chocolate, I used to eat a lot more “cheap” and sugary chocolate. After years in the industry combined with a “maturing” palate (and body…) and sugar being demonized, I tend toward a few squares of fine chocolate a day instead of a mountain of M&Ms… And, of course, I eat snacking cacao EVERY day.
Snacking Cacao Next to Dark Chocolate
VC: Where was your first trip to a cacao origin and what surprised you most about that experience?
KW: My first trip, after I had already decided to get involved in the industry, was to Indonesia – on the Islands of Bali and Sulawesi. I’d read a lot, so what I didn’t comprehend from books –
Words or western descriptions never do the cacao fruit flavor justice. You just have to taste it!
How hot, humid, buggy, heavy, and hard it is to work a cacao farm. No way would I be able to hack it.
Also, at that point, I was meeting ONLY male cocoa farmers. Though I had read about it, I didn’t expect to be sitting among hundreds of cocoa farmers and be the only woman. I now understand more about why that was (access to transport, traditional separation of household responsibilities, etc.). Coming from a US-based context, it was still surprising to me!
VC: What are the current cacao origins in your products and how do you decide which origins to work with?
KW: Our current origin partners are in Sulawesi, Indonesia and Copan, Honduras. For Indonesia, one of my now-friends, Pak Peni Agustiyanto, thought Koptan Masagena would be a great partner for us because they’re entrepreneurial and like to try new things. On my first trip, I went fully expecting that I’d be working with men. Then, when I suggested making something from the cacao they were growing, only women showed up! I was completely shocked. It was then that I realized that farming is typically men’s work and cooking is typically women’s work. So, making finished products creates jobs for women too! I was elated.
After that, I realized that there was an opportunity to partner with cooperatives who have entrepreneurial groups of women interested in making products from their cacao. The other “must have” for our partners is near-perfect fermentation. In fine chocolate, “80% well-fermented” is typically a high, yet consistent, quality measure. But snacking cacao, needs about 100% well-fermented because each bean is eaten individually. It’s not blended into a bar or powder, so if it’s poorly fermented, our customers will taste it.
We’ve since connected with Coagricsal. They are incredible organic certified partners in Honduras. And I have personally learned so much about teamwork from their women. Moreover, Sandra, their quality lead, is remarkably gifted with fermentation. You can read more about her story here.
VC: What prompted you to focus on working with women in the cocoa supply chain and what are some of the lessons have you learned from them?
KW: Ha ha – we didn’t intentionally work with women. Rather, we joyfully fell into that. Here are a couple of lessons that immediately come to mind –
Teamwork – this is especially true for the Honduras team. When we first started working together, I suggested certain individualized metrics that I’m thankful they didn’t take too seriously… They have continually defined success as a team, supported one-another, cross-trained one another and delivered better quality with greater efficiency each year. That’s a HUGE lesson for me.
Hospitality – when I work with our partners, I don’t stay in hotels. I stay in their homes and am welcomed as family (or royalty, I suppose). There’s very little I can contribute in a foreign culture, language, and context. Yet, we have a chance to bond in the “after-hours” of home and family life. It’s hard to describe – but visitors are more welcomed, fluid, expected and the cultures are less individualistic.
Keep my mouth shut – I’m still learning this one – ALL. THE. TIME. On my better days, I ask more questions and try to hold back on my opinions. In most cases, they have better solutions to the problems and challenges we face than I do. Whether it be transporting cacao or evaluating quality in Indonesia or creating new products and reinvesting in the community in Honduras – their ideas are better than mine!
My Honduras Family
VC: From your experience and observations, what do you feel would continue to increase farmer’s wages? What would you want consumers to be aware of in regard to this topic?
KW: I wish I had great answer(s) for this! I suspect it will be a lifelong journey. But here are a few things I look for –
Terms like Direct trade or transparent trade are likely to pay more because prices are typically more consistent and fair from year-to-year. At least in my experience, the co-op (or farmer) is setting the price themselves or negotiating a contract directly with the buyer. So they have more agency. And, fewer layers / traders in between can ideally leave more money in farmers’ hands.
Origin Made (or at least in the growing country) – this may not increase farmer’s wages specifically, but it does contribute to overall community income and a more healthy local and national economy. After all, if the buyer and seller are in close proximity, they’re not as likely to exploit one another the way an international trade relationship might. And, though this is not specifically wage related, selling to local or in-country makers increases the likelihood that the grower will be able to quite literally enjoy the fruits of their own labor!
Fair Trade or similar certifications are a place to start, but often do not guarantee a farmer a living wage. In fact, a 2018 study by Fair Trade in Ivory Coast in 2018 indicated only 7% of cocoa farmers earned a living income. This is not to say it’s not working. Just that we have a loooong way to go.
As a point of reference – having been in both industries, I firmly believe a 2-4 oz. bar of chocolate should cost as much as a 750mL bottle of wine. I won’t bore you with all the reasons why, but we’re far from that reality. So, next time you buy a bottle of wine, buy a bar or chocolate of equal price to go with it.
Koptan Masagena Team
VC: What has been the most pleasurable part of working in cacao? What has been the most challenging?
KW: The most pleasurable are definitely the people and the product! There’s something about connecting with people over food – and that extends to people who are making food and enjoying it. While I fully expected that I would connect with our co-workers around the world (and that’s still truly my most pleasurable part), I didn’t expect to build friendships with so many customers and industry colleagues. Even those we’ve only met online. What a privilege!
The most challenging is marketing a new product from cacao that isn’t chocolate. I’m a creature of habit and I think many others are too – especially when it comes to food. Even being in food, it’s not too often I try something truly new – maybe a new brand or a new flavor variation of something I already enjoy, but not something completely different. I hadn’t anticipated how hard that would be – especially when there’s so little in the American diet to whole cacao beans.
VC: You’ve recently been experimenting with new flavors/coatings for your cacao beans. Where do you get your flavor inspirations and how much time/experimenting does it take to get a flavor “right”?
KW: Originally, our flavors came from trying to find antioxidant-rich herbs and spices that pair well with cacao. Creating healthy products is still a big motivation for me, but my definition of healthy may not be yours.
Now, I try to involve our customers as much as possible. All of our new flavor inspiration came from customer requests and ideas! For experimenting – it’s a ton of notetaking, tweaking one thing at a time, and constantly testing with customers, friends and kitchen mates. I’ve been working on the new flavors we’re about to launch for nearly a year.
That said, I taste every batch (it’s a tough life…) and there are still times I won’t release a batch of products I’ve been making for five years because it doesn’t taste quite right. It’s both art & science!
Good King Cacao Paired with Cheese
VC: What’s the best way to taste and enjoy Good King cacao beans? Any favorite pairings you’d like to share?
Before you try it, it’s important to remember this is going to be a delightfully crunchy snack – more like a nut or even a cracker – versus something that melts in your mouth. So, if you’re used to savoring chocolate, don’t suck on it!
In terms of pairings and serving suggestions, I have what seems like countless ideas on our website. My personal favorites are with cheese (17 options and counting) or fresh or dried fruit. Personally, I eat cacao most often for breakfast (in oatmeal or on toast) or as an afternoon snack instead of chips or junk food.
Good King Cacao with Fruit
VC: What impact would you like Good King cacao beans to have on the world?
KW: What a great question! This is certainly something I hope to define together with our suppliers, customers, and industry collaborators. To me, it’s all about the people! That said, here are some of my dreams that I hope we can play a small part in bringing to life –
Cacao farming communities will have a reputation for making the best chocolate and cacao products in the world (much like estate wines!). And while thinking about “estate” chocolate, cacao farming will be esteemed as a vocation.
Countless new cacao products will be developed in growing communities and enjoyed locally + around the world. Many, if not most, of these will restore cacao’s reputation as an indulgent health food.
Cacao farming communities will have an equal chance of creating a “good life” for themselves as do employees at major chocolate companies, wholesalers and retailers.
Welcome to the 5th annual Dark Matters Chocolate Awards! I tasted so many lovely bars in 2020 that it was such a difficult pleasure to pick the very top bars!
Throughout the year I keep a running list of potential nominees in multiple categories. To qualify, the craft chocolate bars must be ones that I tasted in the actual award year and that I paid for myself. (Makers do occasionally send me bars to try, and some are award worthy, but if I received them for free they get left out of the running in order to keep the awards fair). I tend to look for bars that are either complex, or manage to represent an inclusion in a clean, clear, or unique way.
Some of the winners might be part of a makers permanent line-up, but they may also be a one-time creation that is no longer available.
And the winners are…..
White Chocolate Inclusion Bars
Would you believe this was my hardest category to narrow down since it had the most potential nominees? If you are new to the craft chocolate scene, I hope you will visit white chocolate again if it has been a while. In the past few years white chocolate has gone to such exciting new places!
6th Place: Fjak Sjokolade Blackcurrant Pie Nordic Collection. Tastes of blackcurrant, cream, oats, almonds, honey and pastry! Fjak is a maker that should be in your chocolate stash for sure!
5th Place: Askinosie Chocolate White Chocolate made with goat’s milk, house-pressed Davao Philippines cacao butter and roasted cacao nibs. Tastes of light goat’s milk, pale honey, cocoa and light cinnamon. So addictive it’s worth ordering two at a time!
Askinosie White Chocolate Davao, Philippines bar with goats milk and nibs.
4the Place: The Cocoa Forge Toasty White with 72% Nunokoloa, Rakiraki Province Fiji chips, Seville orange peel and Dominican Republic cocoa butter. Tastes of cream, caramel and cocoa with hints of chocolate cake.
The Cocoa Forge Toasty White bar
3rd Place: Foxglove Chocolate Black & White bar. Black currant and white chocolate with black licorice. Tastes of butterscotch, black currant, salt, vanilla wafer cookie, malt and subtle licorice. As a kid I never liked licorice candy, but craft chocolate makers utilize licorice in such tasty ways that now I am a fan.
Foxglove Chocolate Black & White bar.
2nd Place: Mission Chocolate Romeo & Juliet. Cream cheese white chocolate with guava chunks. Tastes of cream cheese, ricotta cheesecake, cream and hear shaped fragrant guava pieces. Amazing! Wish I had ordered two!
1st Place: Violet Sky Chocolate Sourdough French Toast bar featuring bread from The Elder Bread shop. Tastes of sourdough, pastry, butter, French toast, cinnamon, salt, vanilla and mace. One of my all time favorite inclusion bars ever.
Violet Sky Chocolate Sourdough French Toast bar.
Milk Chocolate Bars With or Without Inclusions:
3rd Place: Castronovo Chocolate’s Dominican Republic 55% dark/milk bar. Tastes of cream, caramel and rich hot cocoa. Yum!
Castronovo Chocolate Dominical Republic Dark Milk bar.
2nd Place: Svenska Kakaobolaget 54% Coconut Milk. Vegan “mylk” chocolate. Tastes of sweet coconut macaron, buttery and light caramel. I confess this bar sat in my collection unopened for a while, but once I tasted it, I wished I had opened it so much sooner. What a pleasure!
Sevenska Kakaolaget Coconut Milk bar.
1st Place: Theo & Philo’s Adobo bar with a soy sauce toffee and black pepper. Tastes of milk chocolate covered toffee, savory soy sauce and black pepper. Unique and delicious!
Theo & Philo Adobo bar.
Dark Chocolate Inclusion Bars
6th Place: Goodnow Farms Chocolate Lawley’s Rum 72% Ecuador cacao with Lawley’s Rum in collaboration with Boston Harbor Distillery. Tastes of vanilla, oak, molasses and raisin with a finish of tropical fruit, brown fruit and subtle stone fruit. A very special bar!
Goodnow Farms Lawley’s Rum bar.
5th Place: Arete Lavender bar with 65% Maya Mountain Belize Cacao. Tastes of lavender, peppermint and light pale stone fruit with some cocoa and minerality in the finish. I hope you had a chance to try this bar! I hope they return to making chocolate again someday.
Arete Lavender bar.
4th Place: Marou’s Mekong Kumquat 68% Tien Gang Vietnam cacao. Tastes of kumquat (both the bright, fresh citrus and the zest), clove and cinnamon with mango and grapefruit appearing in the finish.
Marou’s Mekong Kumquat bar.
3rd Place: Askanya Chocolate Bouquet Vert 65% Haitian cacao with lime zest. Tastes of lime, black pepper, cinnamon and light honey. While this may seem like a simple inclusion Askanya did a lovely job with the interpretation and presentation of lime in this bar.
Askanya Bouquet Vert bar.
2nd Place: Bixby Chocolate 20 Karat Primo Bar 70% Dominican Republic cacao created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Primo Restaurant and represent Primo’s roasted rosemary almond snack. I confess that rosemary is my least favorite herb, so it’s quite something to represent it in a way that completely wins me over, but I couldn’t stop eating this bar! Great job! Tastes of almonds, rosemary, black pepper, salt and crushed red pepper.
Bixby’s 20 Karat Primo Bar.
1st Place: Madhu Chocolate 71% Idukki Indian cacao featuring Diaspora Co. black pepper. This bar appears in Madhu’s four bar Lakshmi Collection. At first the black pepper is the main star, but as you revisit this bar additional flavors make themselves known including vanilla, fruity pepper and pale stone fruit. I’ve had a white pepper bar and a couple black pepper bars all by other makers, but so far, this is the best I’ve had! This is a very special tasting black pepper as well.
Madhu’s Lakshmi Collection.
Bars with Coffee
Coffee is one of my favorite inclusions so it gets it’s very own category! Do you like chocolate with coffee?
4th Place: Cuna de Piedra 73% Mexican cacao from Comalcalco, Tobasco with Buna Coffee. Tastes of coffee, lemon rind and malt.
Cuna de Piedra’s Mexican cacao with coffee beans bar.
3rd Place: Primo Botanica Café Superior 75% Oro Verde Peru and Maya Mountain cacaos with Guatemalan coffee from Touchy Coffee. Tastes of espresso, nice acidity level, nutty, roasted coconut, caramel and dark honey.
Primo Botanica Cafe Superior bar.
2nd Place: Atypic Chocolate Long Black. Tastes of coffee, molasses and mild lemon peel. So good!
Atypic’s Long Black bar.
1st Place: River-Sea Chocolates Double Bean-Double Buzz with 72% Columbian cacao and made with Columbian coffee. Coffee from Weird Brothers Coffee. Tastes of rich coffee, earthy, mild lemon zest, a touch floral towards the finish followed by an ending of cocoa-dusted brownie. Double the pleasure for sure!
River -Sea Chocolates Double Bean-Double Buzz bar.
Higher Percentage Dark Chocolate Bars
What’s your favorite 90 – 100% bar?
2nd Place: Theo & Philo 90% cacao from the Philippines. Tastes of dark fruit, brown fruit, woodsy and cocoa. I’ve enjoyed all the bars I’ve tried so far my Theo & Philo. They are worth seeking out!
Theo & Philo 90% bar.
1st Place: Zotter Labooko 100% Sambirano Valley Madagascar bar. Tastes of cocoa, red berry, oak, deep dark chocolate brownie and coffee with a long cocoa finish and a full-bodied mouth feel.
Zotter Labooko 100% Madagascar bar.
Dark Chocolate Bars 70 – 78%
6th Place: To’ak Chocolate 75% Galapagos Santa Cruiz Island cacao 2018 harvest. Light roast with a 7 day fermentation. I like that they enclosed a whole cacao bean to try. A nice touch! This bar tastes of oak, fudge, vanilla, ricotta, rum and chocolate cake batter.
To’ak Galapagos bar.
5th Place: 9th & Larkin 70% Tien Giang Vietnam cacao. Tastes of dark cherry, unsalted butter, dark brown sugar and a finish of brownie. A pleasure to taste!
9th & Larkin Tien Giang, Vietnam bar.
4th Place: Zotter Labooko 70% Mountains of the Moon Uganda cacao. Tastes of cream, blueberry, cocoa, earthy, spice and waffle cone with a touch of red berry in the finish.
Zotter Labooko Uganda bar.
3rd Place: Soma Chocolatemaker 70% Sambirano Valley, Madagascar. Tastes of strawberry and gooseberry with a finish of cocoa dusted brownie. Soma is consistently fantastic!
Soma Chocolatmaker’s Madagascar bar.
2nd Place: Chocolate Naive Nano_Lot Cacao Sierra Julian. El Salvador cacao. Tastes of vanilla (none added), chocolate chip cookie, nutty, dark stone fruit, mild cigar and speyside scotch.
Chocolate Naive Nano-Lot Cacao Sierra Julian bar.
1st Place: Beau Cacao 78% Asajaya Malaysia 2019 harvest. Tastes of nutty, peanut meets almond meets Brazil nut butter, cereal, light red fruit for a few seconds and brown sugar with a finish of chicory. Given the fantastic shine and snap of this bar followed by the creamy mouthfeel and flavor if you close your eyes it feels like eating a nut butter cup. Lovely bar!
Beau Cacao Asajaya Malaysia bar.
Congrats to the winners!
What a delicious year! I hope some of your favorites made an appearance here and I wish all of you delectable chocolate this new year!
*All pictures in this post were taken by, yours truly, Victoria Cooksey.
Certificates in both Chocolate Achievement & Mastering Chocolate Flavor Ecole Chocolat IWC International Sommelier Guild Essential Vegan Desserts Rouxbe Grad
Who doesn’t enjoy a great bonbon? But what makes a bonbon great in the first place? It used to be that the majority of options were boxes of chocolates with an unknown filling (until you perhaps took a bite out of each one to find out), and honestly not the best flavors in some of the cheaper options. Now that craft chocolate is continuing to grow the chocolates may be made from single-origin, high quality cacao beans by craft makers.
Sometimes bean-to-bar craft chocolate makers are using their own chocolate to make bonbons (hence the term bean-to-bonbon), but now chocolatiers are also experimenting with different maker’s chocolate in their own creations. Then there’s the craft makers with chocolatier backgrounds and chocolatiers that also now make their own chocolate. Confused yet? Don’t worry! It’s all delicious!
In this blog post we will deep dive into this bean-to-bonbon topic by exploring the chocolately minds of amazing chocolatiers and bean-to-bar chocolate makers alike for a solid knowledge foundation of chocolate in regards to working with craft versus more industrial chocolate in chocolate work and the challenges with pairing single-origin chocolate flavors with inclusions. (Single-origin chocolate can have different flavors occurring in the cacao from each origin and even each harvest year-to-year). In fact, we are going to learn quite a lot of information, and yes, we will even find out what makes a bonbon great!
Chocolatasm Bonbons
A huge thank you to Olivier Fernadez of Gaston Chocolat in Vanuatu, Steph Shafer of Bella Sophia Chocolates in California, chocolatier David Upchurch in California, Paul John Kearins of Chocolatasm in Massachusetts and both Russell Pullan and Albert Chau of Fifth Dimension Chocolate in England for sharing all their experience, amazing talent and knowledge for this post!
*Special Note: Not every chocolatier in this article uses bean-to-bar/craft chocolate every time in their creations. Some may use it for special collaboration projects, on certain occasions, for fun experimentation of items, or sometimes it is single-origin chocolate, but not from a small craft maker every time. This article is looking at the information/experience gained from the occasions that the chocolatiers have created with bean-to-bar/craft chocolate, but also to learn from their overall knowledge of their skills as a chocolatier regardless of the type of chocolate used each time. (Often on their website’s product description, wrappers or social media posts chocolatiers will list when they have used craft chocolate/bean-to-bar in a particular item).
Most chocolate makers are using their own chocolate for their bonbons, but they might also be commenting on their previous experience in the realm of chocolatiers prior to using their own bean-to-bar chocolate. Bean-to-bonbon refers to using this high quality craft chocolate to make bonbons.
In regards to terminology, technically all chocolate, small or industrial, could be bean-to-bar since it is made from cacao beans of varying qualities, however, for the purpose of this post when I ask for experience with “bean-to-bar” and “craft chocolate” I’m referring to chocolate made with high-quality beans by craft makers.
Victoria Cooksey: What experience do you have in the realm of a chocolatier?
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: At Gaston our endeavour from day one was to get the best of the Vanuatu terroir into fine chocolate and this was never limited to Cacao and chocolate bars. With this in mind, I started experimenting on bonbons and truffles a little short after we had our first Vanuatu origin chocolate out of the refiner back in 2014. At the time, it was a two ingredient rustic type of Dark 70% and, though it was rich in flavours, it proved hard to work with due to a low fat content. It wasn’t until 2017 after we opened Gaston’s manufacture and retail shop that I really got the time and room to start making and selling chocolate truffles and bonbons on a more regular basis.
Most of what I learned on truffles and bonbons is connected to a special relationship that goes as far back as when I was 7 years old and I visited Jean-Louis Vaissaud’s chocolate and truffles shop in my hometown on the French Riviera. Later I have come to know Jean-Louis as a friend and mentor and he played a key role in developing Gaston, being my go to person to train with and one I can chat for hours and days with about confection and pairing flavours.
Olivier Fernandez of Gaston Chocolat
Steph Shafer/Bella Sophia Chocolates: I am a self-taught chocolatier, with 4 years’ experience. I have participated in the chocolatier Primer Book, the Oscars and the Daytime Emmy’s. I have made chocolates for restaurants, hotel turn down service, Bourbon distillery, weddings and charity events.
Steph Shafer of Bella Sophia Chocolates at the 2019 Day Time Emmys
VC: What inspired you to become a chocolatier?
David Upchurch: My relationship with my mother was at it’s best when cooking and we both loved to bake. So I had basic baking skills as a Southern kid. My senior year of college I lived in Paris, France. There I experienced culture shock, in so many ways. Pastry and chocolate were a revelation. I ate chocolate bars with marked percentages. I ate my first truffle on the parvis outside of Chartres cathedral. I was smitten. So chocolate, the romance of it, the complexities, the art of pastry work, it stayed with me. I began my profession career in chocolate in 2010 when the recession changed my career path.
David Upchurch
VC: How does a chocolatier approach differ from a bean-to-bar chocolate maker? What are the similarities?
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: If I had to compare a chocolatier and a maker I would picture a DJ and a producer, one is a living library and knowledge of tunes that he masters at mixing to create a moment, while the second makes the very music from scratch in refining sounds and frequencies. Both have in common a universe of their own that they share through their creations, a make and a signature.
In terms of technique, the chocolatier has a wide palette of ingredients to work with which comes with a serious amount of knowledge of food processing required for it could affect the shelf-life of the products while a maker has more room on this end but less variables to create bars. It might prove even more challenging when commitment is made to an origin as tree to bar since you cut yourself from the option of sourcing different origins and works on a narrower range of genetics. It triggers creativity to come-up with novelty. But if you look at music, again, you would think after centuries of using a guitar and a drum that we might have exhausted the things that were never done before or revisit them in brilliant ways. This is how I would picture it best.
Steph Shafer/Bella Sophia Chocolates: With a chocolatier, there is a lot of thought that goes into which percentage of cacao to use with each filling, not all percentages go with each other, you need a perfect balance, or it won’t taste as good.
I feel like, all of us who share a passion for chocolate also share a passion for making everyone happy, we do this through our chocolate. One of the best feelings, is watching someone take a bite of your perfectly thought out confection, we scream inside quietly, with anticipation to see the thrill on your face, every one of us. We all end up melting, tempering and molding chocolate, whether we make it ourselves or buy it from a maker already prepared.
VC: When did you first start using bean-to-bar in some of your creations?
David Upchurch: Friends who happen to be growing cacao in Costa Rica, convinced me to join them at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in 2017. I was hooked immediately into the craft chocolate movement. The social justice goals, the rainbow of humanity involved, the positive energy and camaraderie, the possibilities of chocolate, all that clicked with me. It was there that I made a few lasting friendships. Among those are the ladies who create and promote Conexion Chocolates out of Quito, Ecuador. Since then I have moved toward chocolate makers that are more ethical and work directly with farmers / producers.
VC: How long have you been using single-origin chocolate in your creations?
Russell Pullan/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: We have been using single-origin chocolate since we started in since 2013 – this is something we have decided to do, as we like the different flavour characteristics of various single-origin chocolates.
Russell Pullan and Albert Chau of Fifth Dimension Chocolates
VC: What are you looking for when you pick out someone’s bean-to-bar chocolate to work with?
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: Well, up until now it has always been with someone who I know on a personal level. In this somewhat intimate community in the US it’s not unusual to spark up friendships. That leads to conversations exchanging of ideas and then of course being a chocolatier I am eager to try out their chocolate. What I am looking for is something that is ethical/sustainable, apart from that it’s kind of random; I will take some of the chocolate and taste it first and go from there.
Paul John Kearins of Chocolatasm
David Upchurch: I look for fluidity and refinement. I look at the ingredients and fat content. I look to the maker for the intended use of the chocolate. A bar of rare cacao may not be best used in a peanut butter cup. There are a growing number of small batch makers offering couverture. I look for flavor and what could unfold from that chocolate.
I have collaborated with local makers 9th and Larkin, and Jay Holechek of The Latest Batch. My workhorse chocolates are by Felchlin, made in Switzerland, Conexion and Republica del Cacao, made at origin in Ecuador. These are all direct-trade chocolate makers.
Bonbons by David Upchurch
VC: What inspired you to recently start making some of your own bean-to-bar creations?
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: A friend of mine who was formally operating as Carbon Chocolate told me he was stopping and I asked him what he was doing with his grinders, he sold one to me and I have the opportunity now to play around and create small amounts of chocolate for my own specific recipes. When I started with a blend of coffee and cocoa beans I was humbled at the process that my friends in the craft chocolate Making world are masters of… ITS HARD!
It is not something I intend on making a big thing of; just small, fun, playtime projects.
Bars and Bonbons by Chocolatasm
VC: Does bean-to-bar chocolate behave differently when it comes to tempering than with larger produced/standard type of chocolate you might have practiced with before switching to bean-to-bar? How does bean-to-bar chocolate affect the making of a ganache or other fillings versus standard chocolate?
Russell Pullan/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: Yes, fluidity of the melted chocolate is the most noticeable difference. In a bean-to-bar chocolate, the lower amount of cocoa butter and the type of cocoa butter used would affect the viscosity of the chocolate – This would increase the chance of air bubbles on the shells as well as thicker shells when we make molded chocolates. Ganache is not being affected as much, because we would add cream and other ingredients into the chocolate, and thus we can control the fluidity more easily.
Albert Chau/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: Also, with bean-to-bar chocolate, the flavour may not be so consistent over time. Just like wine, we expect variations in the harvest of cacao every year due to weather etc, and that can affect the flavour of the chocolate. However, without careful control of the post-harvest processing such as fermentation and roasting profile, the flavour can vary widely, and that can make it challenging for flavoured ganache, as the pairing of flavour with the chocolate may work in one bean-to-bar batch but not in another.
Russell Pullan of Fifth Dimension Chocolates Tempering Chocolate
VC: Does bean-to-bar chocolate behave differently when it comes to tempering than with larger produced/standard type of chocolate you might have practiced with before becoming a chocolate maker? How does bean-to-bar chocolate effect the making of a ganache or other fillings versus standard chocolate?
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: Indeed, commercial types of chocolates tend to have much higher contents of fat and sugar which alters their viscosity, and the lecithin will also have an impact. It proves harder to work with craft chocolate, they’re usually thicker and solidify faster, but it adds so much flavours and generosity to the recipe and it’s an integral part of it, not just a vehicle for the ganache. I would tend to use higher percentage of cacao and low sugar in the chocolate we make for bonbons to balance the sugar contained in ganache and fruits. Sugar will increase your shelf life but I don’t like it when it overpowers your senses, it’s almost anaesthetic for me though we keep it as low as possible and mostly in ganache for the preservation of the bonbon. And I love the way everything melts when you crack the shell and get that explosion of flavours from the ganache blending in the chocolate.
Gaston Chocolate Bean-to-Bonbon
VC: Does bean-to-bar chocolate behave differently when it comes to tempering than with larger produced/standard type of chocolate you might have created with? How does bean-to-bar chocolate effect the making of a ganache or other fillings versus standard chocolate? Does it change how the chocolate works in molds for larger decorative pieces?
David Upchurch: Ha! Let’s write a book! Industrial chocolate, marketed toward pastry professionals, is designed to be easy to use in a variety of applications. Pastry professionals are intensely busy and need consistent and facile chocolate. Working with small batch chocolate requires more knowledge of the chocolate material which most pastry professionals lack. The variations in small batch chocolate create the adventure. Flavor of course is the fun part. Fat content of beans varies by genetics and terroir. Tempering is based on fat crystallization and so the science will be consistent in any chocolate. Conching and refinement varies by maker and these variables affect every aspect of workability. Couverture chocolates vary in added fat content as well as refining. It all comes down to viscosity and the varying factors that play into viscosity. Chocolatiers need fluid chocolates that can work in molding and shaping. We need to know fat content as an ingredient as it will affect any application of that chocolate. Working with bean-to-bar or small batch chocolates requires more knowledge of the material and more testing for consistency.
Lecithin is a key ingredient in most couvertures. It provides more fluidity than added fat which can mute flavor. Two ingredient chocolates have very limited applications because of their viscosity. They are just too thick.
Bonbons by David Upchurch
VC: Does bean-to-bar chocolate behave differently when it comes to tempering than with larger produced/standard type of chocolate you might have created with? How does bean-to-bar chocolate effect the making of a ganache or other fillings versus standard chocolate?
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: Yes it does behave differently in the majority of cases, it is often much thicker than “conventional” couvertures. Also the majority of craft chocolates contain no emulsifying ingredients as do mass produced chocolates. the addition of lecithin aids in the manufacture of ganache, which is an emulsion. There is some controversy about the use of Lecithin with claims to health issues which are largely unfounded, for a chocolatier lecithin a bonus not a hindrance As it keeps the chocolate fluid and allows cream and other liquids to be incorporated into the Chocolate without separating. I am sure any lecithin in the chocolate I use comes from ethically produced organic sources.
VC: What are the challenges of pairing single-origin chocolate to the various caramels that you make?
Albert Chau/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: It is very much down to pairing the flavour profile of the chocolate with the caramel. At the start of the development process, we might like to have the caramel in milk chocolate ideally. However, during the development process, we might find that it works better with dark chocolate, and then we would find out that it works with one particular origin’s dark chocolate and not another.
Fifth Dimension Chocolates Bonbons
VC: What are the challenges and the pleasures of matching inclusions with the bean-to-bar chocolate?
David Upchurch: Flavor and texture and color are the most fun parts of the game for a chocolatier. The flavor of a chocolate is usually a starting point, then we have fun with possibilities. The challenge again is viscosity. If it is fluid it has more sculptural applications than if it is viscous. What inclusions I pair with a chocolate are partly decided by the shape or texture of the final piece. Two-ingredient chocolates suggest simplicity as bars, mendiants or rustic shapes. Fluid chocolates offer more options. Each has their place.
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: The pleasures are of course knowing that the chocolate has been produced in a purely hands-on manner just as the products I make from them have been. It fortifies the artisan element. In small batch craft chocolate flavors can be much more nuanced and at the same time much broader if that makes sense! Flavors can be extremely bold and that allows me to be equally as bold in my flavor combinations. Challenges are that often a successful flavor pairing will not be as successful with subsequent batches from small makers as they are at the mercy of the harvest, which can deliver subtly different flavor profiles and even the source of that harvest can just dry up.
VC: What makes you decide a flavor/inclusion/filling would be better suited to making a bonbon instead of making a chocolate bar?
Steph Shafer/Bell Sophia Chocolates:I like the fact that you can fill a bonbon with all kinds of yumminess, from a dark chocolate silky smooth ganache to a crème brulee, you can’t really stuff a bar with multiple layers like you can with a bonbon.
Bella Sophia Chocolates Making Bean-to-Bar Chocolate
VC: What makes you choose to make a bonbon instead of an inclusion bar?
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: There is no pre or immediate choice made, I will use it for a variety of items once I have it in a significant amount in my possession. Some creative processes result in me discovering that the chocolate is probably not best suited for enrobing and small-cavity molding due to its viscosity which means I continue only using it for bars or solid pieces for bars or solid pieces.
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: Mostly the ingredient and the way its flavour varies in the processing. Some fruits work better in ganache than dehydrated for inclusion in a bar, with evaporation of the water you tend to lose flavours and end up with acidity only. Cooking alters flavours too and might work adversely. This might be even more relevant to the Vanuatu terroir which fruits are usually high in water contents and very subtle. The season and what’s available from the producers, in our garden, or at the market is usually what triggers inspiration.
We also pay a lot of attention to the textures. An inclusion should not be to hard or unevenly spread over the bar or else you end up with unpleasant mouth fell or huge variations in flavours from one bite to the next. For textures we use a wide range of local nuts that are very tasty and with different fat contents. We have developed a range of coated products specifically to put forward the local nut and some pairings with craft chocolate are insane.
Gaston Chocolate Bonbons
VC: What characteristics make a bonbon great?
Russell Pullan/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: When every element comes together and it has that “wow” factor. It doesn’t have to be a complex or unusual flavour combination – good quality ingredients that balance well with the chocolate used is crucial. The texture is also important – whether it’s a silky smooth caramel or different layers of contrasting texture in a bonbon. And of course, it has to look good too, and the appearance should be part of the story behind the chocolate.
Albert Chau/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: I agree with Russell. For me, there’s no one set of characteristics for a great bonbon, but usually after eating one and I want to eat another one, that’s a good start. The best indicator is when I would have that strong desire to go to the chocolatier’s shop just to buy that bonbon, even when it’s in a different part of the world!
Steph Shafer/Bella Sophia Chocolates: Visual/Taste/Smell/Texture/ First people eat with their eyes, so my passion for art gets to take center stage, each one a mini abstract piece of art. It’s also important that the smell, texture and taste of the chocolate shell blend perfectly with the filling, because the wrong percentage can throw off the balance.
Bella Sophia Chocolates Bonbons
VC: What makes a bonbon special?
David Upchurch:texture + flavor + presentation – It is magical when those elements come together and just sing.
Context and associations – A simple truffle enjoyed at Chartres cathederal changed my world. The last food my mother ate before passing, was a rose caramel that I made. Bonbons shared in unique moments, with people dear to us, can become very potent memories.
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: The balance between flavours and textures. You have to have both the taste and mouth feel right. When you have both, it’s like an intense kiss. The tempering for a perfect mirror shine, like jewels. The shape, it gives your bonbon a personality. Some use colours and I find it beautiful, but I like sober, intense dark.
Gaston Chocolat Bonbons
VC: What do you want the consumer to experience in a bonbon versus a bar?
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: To me a bonbon is the perfect bite, an explosion of flavours and textures that blows all your senses. The bar is more of an intimate relationship, a nice ride that develops bite after bite in layers and complexity. Somehow I find it easier to have expectations when I crack a bar whereas the bonbon is always a question mark. I want the consumer to be adventurous in bonbons and try something unexpected, intense, be carried away and live the moment like time has stopped for a blink. With bars, it’s more like flirting and becoming comfortable, this little happy place they can get back to every time they open a bar. I often ask clients about their chocolate rituals and it is always special.
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: Well naturally I want it to be a journey. I like to create layers of flavor resulting in an overall experience that is memorable. The same goes for bonbons and bars and confections. There is no distinction between them.
VC: What do you want the consumer to experience when they try one of your bonbons?
Russell Pullan/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: First and foremost – I’d like them to enjoy our bonbons. If it’s one of our more innovative or unusual flavours, I want them to be open-minded and try them – we love it when they are introduced to flavours that are not often paired with chocolate, and we see that surprise on their faces. Our “Siem Reap” (Cambodian Curry) is a classic example – savoury Southeast Asian curry in a sweet white chocolate is such an alien concept, but we just love the customers’ eye lit up when they taste this bonbon and experience that flavour journey, and open their eyes and minds to some new combination of ingredients.
Alber Chau/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: I also like the consumer to enjoy some of the more mainstream flavours – often the simpler ones are harder to do. We do a fair amount of research when it comes to sourcing ingredients too, and we use the best quality ingredients we can get, and let the ingredients do the talking.
VC: What other confections do you like to use craft chocolate in? What challenges does single-origin chocolate bring when incorporating it into confections?
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: Well, my products consist largely of solid pieces and filled bonbons and I use craft chocolate in all of them. The biggest challenge of using single origin is there is no challenge! I treat a single origin exactly the same way I treat all the other craft chocolate I receive it has a flavor profile and I do my best to honor that. There is leveling off sanctity regarding single origin and people who know me I’ve probably already gathered that I’m like “whatever, Let’s make some shit”.
Russell Pullan/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: One of our recent projects is the collaboration with Pump Street Chocolate. Some of their most famous flavoured bars contains baked products e.g. Eccles, Sourdough & Sea Salt, Rye, etc. We are huge fans of their bars, and when they asked us to create the bonbon version of their bars, we just had to say yes straight away! It’s not as simple as just melting these bars and turning them into ganache – the breadcrumbs from sourdough and rye would go soggy in ganache very quickly, and we want to keep to the distinct characters that made their bars famous. So we have to use some different techniques and tricks to make the bonbons.
David Upchurch: The challenge again is viscosity and fat content. Some confections need more care and balance, and some are more forgiving. Understanding the material is important. A rare cocoa should be used appropriately and not muddied. I use fine chocolate in pâte de fruit and jams / spreads. The range of flavors can be fun.
David Upchurch
VC: What other types of confections do you like to experiment making with craft chocolate?
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: Baking! Revisit all the classics dropping the sugar content and using craft chocolate is always a recipe for success. Now I have to be honest and sometimes simple is nice. In Vanuatu most of the traditional cooking is steamed, food wrapped in leaves and covered in hot stones straight of the fire pit for hours long slow cooking. Inspired by the custom we experimented on Chocolate fondants steamed on firewood and it is just mind blowing.
VC: How do you keep the “fun” in your bonbon creation?
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: Well look at me! Most people who know me and follow me get that I’m pretty frivolous, silly, thoughtful and, most importantly, creative. The expression “you do you” kind of applies when it comes to Chocolatasm, Keeping the fun is being the fun.
Russell Pullan/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: We are always on the lookout for new ideas and flavours when we eat. Some of our friends find it rather amusing when eating out with us, as the conversation always ends up with one of us asking “will this work in chocolate?” and then we start analysing the dish in front of us and debating why a certain flavour would or would not work.
Albert Chau/Fifth Dimension Chocolate: We love a challenge! Every year we set ourselves a challenge. For example, the perception of a caramel in white chocolate is usually frowned upon because it’s considered too sweet. So last year we decided that we wanted to do a white chocolate caramel bonbon, and the result was our “Stockholm” (Salt & Malt Caramel in White Chocolate).
VC: What makes bonbon creation fun?
David Upchurch: Playfulness, finding the time to play and create. I enjoy watching the seasons change and make associations with chocolate. Also the camaraderie of playing with other makers. The challenge of making all the techniques work can be fun, and, and frustrating too.
VC: What would help consumers, and the chocolate word, understand that a person can be both a chocolatier and also sometimes a chocolate maker?
Paul John Kearins/Chocolatasm: Well as far as “Joe public” goes there is often no distinction between the two when I tell them I am a chocolatier and they fully assumed that I also grind up the beans to make chocolate; that’s when I have to educate. I think in this time of social media a good presents with your public and your product is imperative in showing what it is you actually do. The “big cacao” Industrial chocolate making companies focus on imagery of people eating their product, running around laughing; you get it. In the craft chocolate world our social media is based on images of the sourcing of the ingredients and the manufacture of the products, so people are becoming aware through social media what different branches of the chocolate world are actually doing. Anyone in this business who doesn’t have a solid social media presence is missing out on enormous opportunities for exposure, sales, education of the general public.
Chocolate Cacao Pod by Chocolatasm
VC: What would help consumers, and the chocolate word, understand that a person can be both a chocolate maker and a chocolatier?
Steph Shafer/Bella Sophia Chocolates: I’m proof that you can be both, I have learned both ends of the maker/chocolatier world, while one side turns the bean into the chocolate, the other side has to thoughtfully plan out fillings, inclusions and artwork, both of these together make a perfect marriage.
Bella Sophia Chocolates Bonbon
Olivier Fernandez/Gaston Chocolat: It’s interesting because in France when you train for chocolatier you have to pick another major like bakery or pastry chef, you can’t be just a chocolatier by graduation. It is hard for me to imagine making chocolate and not making bonbons. It would feel like forcing creativity to fit in boxes. Most successful chocolate makers also do bonbons and I believe it tells a beautiful story when your clients feel the link between your bars and bonbons and understand why you chose to develop certain flavours in a bonbon and others in a bar. Certainly, chocolatier is more academic and I find it a lot more technical than chocolate making for the number of ingredients and variables you can adjust but you can be super-creative in both fields and turning beans into chocolate often proves equally challenging. I believe working and training on both bonbons and bars helps me to become a more accomplished craftsperson and also opens an infinite field of possibilities which will have me driven for a while.
Thank you to Gaston Chocolat, Bella Sophia Chocolates, David Upchurch, Chocolatasm and Fifth Dimension Chocolates for all this wonderful bonbon information!
Thank you to all of you who take the time to check out this blog and read all of the interviews!
Corinne Joachim Sanon Symietz is the co-founder and CEO of Les Chocolateries Askanya whos craft chocolate bars feature Haitian cacao along with the bars being made Haiti.
Corinne Joachim Sanon Symietz is the co-founder and CEO of Les Chocolateries Askanya
All of the chocolate makers at Askanya are women and Askanya happens to be celebrating it’s 5th anniversary this year. (Congrats and wishing you many more years Les Chocolateries Askanya!).
Studying industrial engineering and achieving an MBA, Corinne long-term vision was to create both a business and jobs, but she didn’t know at the time those dreams began that the business would be in craft chocolate.
(My personal favorite Askanya bar is the 65% Bouquet Vert Lime Chocolate dark chocolate bar with a lime zest inclusion with the zest also coming from Haiti-based MyaBel Food & Beverage).
Corinne’s openness and personality shine through in this interview and I hope you enjoy reading her answers as much as I have.
Victoria Cooksey:How has your work/life experience, travel and education all lead you to start a craft chocolate business?
Corinne Joachim Sanon Symietz: Unfortunately, I was not the chocolate lover. I didn’t get in the craft chocolate business because I was a chocoholic (Sorry, Victoria – but I do love delicious food, in general).
Growing up in Haiti, I was aware of the poverty and lack of opportunities surrounding me (whether it was the cook asking for extra help to pay for her grandson tuition or the housekeeper needing money for a medical emergency). As a teenager (back then), I promised to myself: when I grow up, I will not just do “charity”, I will create jobs.
I figured studying industrial engineering and getting an MBA would help me run a business efficiently and profitably, when I was ready to realize this bucket list item of mine.
So almost 15 years later, I had the skills and knowledge and was deciding what business to run. By then, I wanted my business to generate revenues for farmers (since 60% of Haiti’s population are susbsistence farmers), to create blue-collar jobs (since only 4% of the population has a four-year degree) and finally to be outside of the capital Port-au-Prince to provide opportunities in the countryside. Then (only then) Istarted researching crops, and learned about several crops, among them cacao and the nascent potential of the craft chocolate industry. The rest is History.
VC: Whatdoes chocolate mean to you?
CJSS: Prior to getting in the craft cacao industry – nothing! Or maybe just hot chocolate on Sunday. Now, it can be considered as a black gold – good for you (health-wise), good for the growers (financially); so good for the world!
VC: What makes Haitian cacao special?
CJSS: For one, we have some vintage cacao trees in Haiti (older specimen). In addition, compared to Ecuador that has big uniform cacao estate, Haitian farmers cultivate “ tropical garden”; where on less than a quarter of an acre (sometimes smaller parcels), they have a little bit of everything (mango, lime, orange, coffee, vetiver, plantain,.., and cacao). Therefore, it feels that all this “mélange” gets in the taste of the Haitian cacao beans.
VC: How was chocolate viewed in Haiti and used in daily life/holidays when you were growing up? How has that changed now that craft chocolate is available?
CJSS:Growing up, we almost only had chocolate as “hot chocolate” drink. They would be the artisanal cacao mass (so 100% cacao (fermented sometimes, dried always) that was cracked, unshelled and grinded sometimes by hand and turned into a small ball) that would be mix with spices and hot milk and sugar. Craft chocolate is still very new in Haiti – we (Askanya) still get compared to Hershey or M&M Mars –a very new “industry” requires a lot of education of potential customers. In addition, if you think about it – craft chocolate is frankly still unaffordable to most Haitian (as the GDP is $800/year) – so a very small part of the population can afford a $5 or $8/bar.
VC: Why is it important to work with cacao famers directly? What does that involve?
CJSS: When working with intermediaries, farmers really just get peanuts for their crops (sometimes as little as 5% of the final resale price) and often they can not live off their lands and end up giving up and moving to the city (which creates rural exodus – another problem as often enough jobs are not available in the big cities). Therefore being able to offer a living wage (not a minimum wage) to the farmers is important to make it worth their effort and their time in order for them to live decently from growing and harvesting the cacao (and passing on a profitable or at least living trade to their kids). For us, the living wage ended up paying the farmer almost 7 times the local rate for their cacao pod / beans.
VC: Any tips on how to begin the process of direct trade/sourcing cacao beans for people interested in making bean-to-bar chocolate?
CJSS: First, try to find a reputable firm (ask around to chocolate experts, like you Victoria). In the USA, Uncommon and Meridian are the most known / established. In Haiti, you can rely on us (through our sister firm – G&S Cacao), or contact PISA (via Uncommon Cacao) and FECCANO (selling mostly on the European market). Then once you decide who to work with, it’s time to ask for a sample. From there, it’s working together and making the cost and logistics work for the two partners. This process has worked for our clients and they keep coming back for more.
VC: How has your business benefited your community? How does your company empower women in your community?
CJSS: We source our cacao from 500 cacao farmers in rural communities in Northern Haiti (Grande Rivière du Nord and Limonade); our sugar cane from 200 sugarcane farmers in Center Haiti (Thomonde) and our lime and oranges from Myabel, a farm located in West Haiti (Croix Des Bouquets). Thanks to our recurrent purchases, we provide direct revenues within these farming communities; money that can be used for food, health, education and more.
All our chocolate makers are women – young adults and / or mothers. Working in our chocolate factory was often their first formal work opportunity, for a company that respect them, treat them well, pay them on time. Many of them have been able since then to rent their own apartment, provide adequately for their children / dependents and become the breadwinner for their families.
For our sustainable practices in the chocolate industry, we won the NW Chocolate Sustainability prize in November 2017.
VC: What is the inspiration behind naming your chocolate Askanya?
CJSS: My husband! When I was about to launch my business, we have been married for 5-6 years and we have agreed that whatever business I would do in Haiti, I should not be in Haiti (so outside of our NY home) more than 6 months per year and the business should be named like his German hometown – Aschersleben in German, Ascania in Latin or Askanya in Haitian Creole. Voilà.
VC: How has your experience/studies/degree in Engineering translated into assisting you with running a chocolate business?
CJSS: Being an industrial engineer help me setup the company production processes efficiently – I unfortunately don’t get to practice it that much (as I am not always in Ouanaminthe and we have a fantastic Head of Production who take care of the day to day operations), but when we were working on launching the company almost 6 years ago, I definitely used these skills to establish the workflow, the production output, the employees work scheduling, the material sourcing / reordering processes, etc. All in all – what are all the least amount of inputs needed to produce X chocolates at the lowest cost, while taking into account the infrastructure, legal, human resource, product sourcing challenges surrounding us. This is a real industrial engineering problem.
VC: Since Askanya is celebrating it’s 5th anniversary this year, how has your view on chocolate/craft chocolate making changed over the past five years? What has become more difficult in the chocolate business? What has gotten easier?
CJSS: Through these 5 years, the challenges have changed, we overcame many, but new ones have popped-up. Early on, the main challenge was making sure my grandparents old summer house transformed into a chocolate factory had the appropriate updated infrastructures (electricity / plumbing)that would sustain production. The next challenge was producing at origin in the tropics (we had a tough time with tempering, but we overcame and mastered it). Then came shipping the finished products from our small town in North-Eastern Haiti to Port-au-Prince, our first main market, before we pivoted to the USA). Now, it’s mostlyhaving enough sales to make it worth the effort (so if you are reading this – please buy and/or recommend /introduce use to some stores that can be a great fit for our chocolates.
We are cash flow positive too, but the total original investment is still not paid back.
VC: Where would you like Askanya and the craft chocolate movement to be in another five years?
CJSS: Profitable & Better understood – I cringe, when companies who pretend to “support” minorities /small business” just want to pay $2/bar (just shipping out of Haiti cost $0.75/bar). Dude, you are not helping small businesses when you put the “bar’ so low.
I feel the Western world still need to be educated about what it takes to get your chocolate bar in your hand safely and child-labor free: farmers need to be paid enough to make it worth his/her time (if not, child labor practices will continue – let’s not be hypocritical about that); all-natural products are more expensive because they are more expensive to produce and they don’t have preservatives (preservatives are here to “preserve”, but are not entirely good for your health) – which explains their higher cost. Finally, many of the countries at origin (where cacao is found) still don’t have modern infrastructures – therefore, there’s an extra cost to producing there that people should be aware of and willing to bear.
VC: What impact would you like your chocolate to have on the world?
CJSS: I would love Askanya to be a model for other companies, located at origin and willing to take the risk to produce at origin, which also create more revenues for farmers (and a more sustainable world). These companies could be producing for the local market or for export. But this won’t happen if we don’t get people on-board, educated and willing to ditch their sugar-laded sweet for something natural, healthy, good for them. Similarly, even within Haiti, we need to teach people that being produced at home doesn’t necessarily translate to cheaper.
Thank you so much for this interview Corinne Joachim Sanon Symietz!
*All photos in this interview post were provided by Corinne Joachim Sanon Symietz. of Les Chocolateries Askanya.
Elliott Curelop and Harshit Gupta founded Madhu Chocolate together and named their chocolate after mother Madhu Gupta whose name means “honey” and “sweet” in Hindi.
Harshit Gupta and Elliott Curelop of Madhu Chocolate (Pic from Madhu).
Originally a software engineer and a product developer by profession these Austin, TX based bean-to-bar craft chocolate makers found their winning combo by pairing Indian inspired flavors with Columbian cacao.
Due to the Texas heat their shipping of chocolate is paused until the end of August, so in the meantime we can enjoy learning some new info about Madhu until we can get our chocolate fix again! (If you are in Austin, TX you can still pick up or get orders delivered).
Victoria Cooksey: When and how did you become interested in making bean-to-bar chocolate?
Elliott Curelop: I started making chocolate as a hobby. I have always been interested in the process of how things were made, and was excited to learn that it was possible to make my own chocolate from scratch at home. I still remember how impressive I thought I was when I made my first batch, though I’m certain now it was total garbage!
It was after doing that for a while that I started experimenting with flavors, and our trip to India is what really inspired both Harshit and I to start a business.
VC: How did you decide to use cacao from Columbia?
Harshit Gupta & Elliott Curelop:We had a tasting panel with a bunch of our friends and a variety of chocolate with the same percentage we made from cacao of different regions (our friends are too kind to do such hard work for us for free). Everyone noted what they did/didn’t like about each chocolate, and then ranked them from one to ten. The clear winner was the Tumaco, Colombia beans and for good reason; they’re just wonderful.
Madhu Chocolate Coconut Milk Cashew Bar (Pic by Victoria Cooksey).
VC: How do you incorporate chocolate into your daily lives? How do you enjoy it on special occasions?
Harshit Gupta: Elliott has to taste chocolate every single day while he’s in production, so he doesn’t eat it as a daily dessert like I do. I’m obsessed with chocolate, even after all this time working with it. I usually have brownies, chocolate sorbet, or some other chocolatey treat at my disposal as an after-dinner treat.
On special occasions we like to make fancy desserts for one another. Elliott made a flourless chocolate torte once out of our 70% and I could have died, it was so amazing!
VC: What has been some of the challenges with pairing traditional Indian flavors with chocolate?
HG: I think the biggest challenge we run into is educating our customers as to what they should be tasting. Most people know what saffron is, but very few people here know what it tastes like. They just know it as that stuff that makes paella yellow. It’s similar with cardamom, to a lesser extent, but we find ourselves spending a lot of time explaining what these spices are, what they are usually found in, and why we thought they would taste good in chocolate. This is also where handing out samples really comes in handy.
VC: What has been your favorite combo and why?
EC: Orange Clove is hands down my total favorite. I loved clove studded oranges during the holiday season, and was so excited to be able to make something that is so nostalgic yet also new. Also, I love citrus fruit so I never get sick of this one.
Madhu Chocolate’s Orange Clove Bar(Pic from Madhu).
VC: What takes an inclusion bar from good to great?
EC & HG: Quality ingredients is the number one answer. You spend all this time roasting cacao, cracking it and grinding it for three days. Why would you flavor it with anything other than the best ingredients you can find? I can’t even imagine turning to artificial flavors for that.
Another thing that’s very important is making sure that if a flavor is advertised on that packaging, that the flavor is present in the bar. We’ve tried so many chocolates where the inclusions are thrown on the back of the bar at the last minute and they don’t add any flavor. We almost always grind our inclusions into the chocolate itself even if we are decorating the back because it’s so important to us that our customers feel like they’re getting what they expected out of their chocolate.
VC: With Austin, TX being a place that can reach high temps, how have you had to adapt your chocolate making due to the weather? Any tips for shipping and/or storing chocolate when the temps rise?
HG: We’re very lucky that the AC in our manufacturing space works very well, so even when it hits the triple digits we know the chocolate isn’t at risk. We can’t ship in peak summer though, so that’s always a bit frustrating for us. Still we’d rather not ship at all than send out a product knowing the quality will be impacted by the weather.
As far as tips, I would say look for a cool dry place to keep your chocolate. We don’t recommend the refrigerator, because chocolate tends to absorb the flavor of what is sitting around it, but if it’s the only cool place in the house I suggest wrapping it in plastic or putting it in an airtight jar to keep odors out.
VC: Any suggestions for pairing some of your inclusion bars with some specific cheese, wine, beer, etc?
EC: We like to suggest pairing our Cardamom chocolate with a nice cabernet because the cardamom tends to bring out some nice subtleties in the wine. I also think our Orange Clove goes wonderfully with a nice bourbon or Old Fashioned as both the orange and cloves play so well with the woodiness of the spirit. We also think that stout beers have a nuttiness that tends to pair wonderfully with our rose pistachio and coconut cashew. Honestly, one of the fun things about chocolate is that it can work in so many different situations, so I suggest playing around with pairings.
Madhu Chocolate Dark Masala Chai Bar (Pic by Victoria Cooksey).
VC: Since you started making craft chocolate, how has your thoughts on chocolate/chocolate making changed?
HG: For us the biggest change was our fixation on the ethics of chocolate. Human rights and wage issues in the production of cacao are nothing new, but it seems very abstract when you aren’t in the industry. Starting a business and seeing how your choices directly impact the suppliers really made us realize that we have an opportunity and a duty to obtain ingredients in a way that isn’t exploitative and also won’t destroy the planet.
VC: What impact would you like your chocolate bars to have on the world?
HG & EC: We would love for people to see our bars as an example of the benefits of cross-culturalism. We’re taking what’s long been a Euro-centric product and giving it an Indian twist using South American cacao. I hope people can try our bars and understand the beauty that can be had once you leave your comfort zone.
Cacao fermentation? What is
it all about? How does it affect cacao flavor? Why is it so important?
Olivier Fernandez of Gaston Chocolat makes tree-to-bar craft chocolate in Vanuatu from cacao beans that are grown there. This interview is specific to cacao fermentation and Olivier’s experience/knowledge with fermentation in regards to Vanuatu cacao and location. Quite informative!
Victoria Cooksey: Will you give a brief description of the cacao fermentation
process?
Olivier Fernandez: The fermentation is the second step in the process right after harvesting. It is said to require a minimum of 80kg of green beans to work and could possibly be done on a smaller scale with heating assistance but our experience in the field led us to use a standard 200kg size box. Below, we believe the critical mass to get to the right temperatures is not achieved. It is common to see farmers ferment into bags or digging holes in the ground covered in banana leaves, however we never experienced favourable tasting results from such practices and always witnessed inconsistency from one batch to the next. The fermentation is a two-step transformation of sugars and fats, with a first step consisting of a transformation of the sweet flesh wrapping every bean into a juice which has to drip through the box and out to create space in-between beans and activate the second phase with air and bacteria coming into play. Beans are braised a few times in the second phase to re-introduce fresh air and revive fermentation. Both the length of the fermentation and number of braising vary based on the genetics, the outside temperatures and the flavours you want to develop.
VC: Why is the fermentation process of cacao important?
OF: To us, fermentation is the most critical step in the whole process, the moment you develop the precursor of the chocolate aromas and magnify the cacao you are working with. Let’s put it that way, you could have the finest genetics to work with, if you miss on fermentation your chocolate will taste terrible. Now you could work with mainstream cacao and master fermentation and end up with beautiful and unique chocolate. We believe it speaks volume on how critical fermentation is, and this is common to both cacao and coffee, with a trend for more and more experimenting on flavours and complexity of both when altering variables in the fermentation process.
VC: What are some “off” flavors you have noticed if cacao is under
fermented? If it is over fermented?
OF: An under-fermented cacao will have a high level of ammonia
and literally smell pee, it’s simply terrible and beans will have a typical
purple colour when you do your cut test. For the over-fermented, it is more the
mouldy flavours, cheese flavours that you will detect. Now you should realize
that unless you practice grading upstream in the process, you will have a
disparity of size in the beans entering into the box, and it implies that
smaller beans will ferment faster than larger ones, thus you will always have a
disparity in cut test and what you are looking for is the mass result. In
previous interviews we pointed out how the pre and post-harvest handling of
beans could make a difference and this is mostly related to what will enter the
fermentation box.
VC: Does the type of material/wood the cacao is fermented in
affect the final flavor?
OF: Yes and no. We believe that essences of woods which are prone to release sap in the process should be avoided and so are any type of treated wood like timber used in building or logistic for palettes which are loaded in chemicals for long resistance. At Gaston we used reclaimed wood from trees that were damaged during cyclones. Now telling you that a particular type of wood would give a specific flavour, we believe it would be exaggerated. Not that there is no interaction between the wood and the beans, though we use banana leaves to isolate the beans from the box, but because the magnitude of other variables on the final flavour like the duration or the type of bacteria interacting with the beans in the process is way more important. It is also to be said that we do not work in labs thus each batch has slight variations from the previous one since we have no grip on weather and outside temperatures.
VC: Is the cacao used in your chocolate bars farmed, or is
some/all of it wild cacao that is collected?
OF: The Cacao grows in plantations in Vanuatu, you would get wild trees in random places from birds and animals moving seeds but cacao was all man planted in the beginning and plantations are mostly dual crops with a shed from coconut trees. That said, some abandoned plantations would now look a lot closer to wild than a proper plantation and these are still harvested. A main work we are conducting is to restore some old plantations and get them back into operations with a source of income for the farmers. Know that in Vanuatu the amount of man planted areas is small compared to the vast size of tropical lush rainforest. Logging is limited and there is no mining. We do not face issues of deforestation and people have a profound sense of balance and respect for nature. 60% of agriculture in Vanuatu is for subsistence, not commercial.
VC: Did you begin to make chocolate before you worked on
fermentation with growers/cacao collectors, or after?
OF: Like most chocolate makers yes. I was blending beans with
sugar and other ingredients and enjoyed what came out no matter what or how
terrible it was. Always had fun in the process. However, I would say it is only
after we went back into the field and spent a few years on fermentation and
plantations rehab that we really started to make chocolate. We chose on purpose
to settle Gaston in Vanuatu for it is a country that grows cacao and an origin
which has yet to make a name for. Work with the trees is the key and we would
not conceive to run Gaston in another way. I worked from bags of beans without
contact with the farmers in the past and you are bound to make something with
the beans no matter what comes out of the bag, and believe me it is not always
great. Though I took it as a challenge back in the days, there was a lot of
frustration into the process too.
VC: What has been the biggest challenges in educating
growers/cacao collectors on how to ferment cacao? (Or did they teach you about
fermentation?)
OF: Vanuatu had a commodity type of cacao market before we
began our work and fermentation was the least of the concerns with little
attention paid to it and a focus on volumes. Prices dropping through the years
didn’t trigger any will to invest or maintain plantations, the local market
being controlled by a handful of intermediaries shipping overseas for a nice
mark-up. It was only after we ran a few workshops on how to ferment cacao and
access fine flavour cacao niche market that farmers realized there was an
alternative that would drive higher incomes but requiring more work. It didn’t
click in every location we tried to develop our program and we were confronted
to lack of will and doubts regarding the changes we were introducing in a
process that had been ran for decades in a mechanical repetition of harvest,
dump beans in boxes until it’s full (even if it meant to fill the box over
three or four days of work), turn the beans three times over 7 days and dry
them on hot air type of dryers. Indeed, the process is quick and completed in
10 days when our technique requires at least 18 days between harvest, fermentation
and drying. We also faced the terrible outcomes of programsdestined to
help the farmers and led them to believe that sun drying was the key and only
requirement to qualify for fine flavour cacao. Organisations would mislead the
farmers on prices, pay them a premium over commodity market price that did not
capture the additional time and work it take for sun-drying and leading to
another drop in efficiency and revenues for the farmers. These were our main
challenges and it took three years and a few success stories to materialize to
convince more farmers of the good of this work. To restore a scale of pricing,
we studied everypart of the process, timed and priced it and came up
with a transparent system. We pay two to three times above the commodity cacao
market and our price is net into the worker’s pocket which means we pay for
transport, bags and insurances required to move the beans to our processing
facility.
VC: What has been the most rewarding part of helping others
improve the fermentation process?
OF: The farmers are connected to their cacao in a way we didn’t
witness before. They now see it as a valuable crop and source of income. We
have seen a constantly growing number of farmers wanting to join our program
and started with 3 to reach about 120 last harvest. You might find it small and
it is the measurable extent of what we can do at our scale. Let’s be honest, we
did the work to enhance the quality which serves us as well and we are not here
to save the world. Our packaging doesn’t talk about fair trade or socially
responsible behaviours, we simply do it. We believe that for as long as we use
it as a marketing tool it will not become the norm. Everyone in the bean to bar
movement is aware and has good practice. I personally believe it is a signature
of this branch of the chocolate industry. At the end of the day what matters is
that farmers have a better management of their resources, plant new trees for
the future generations and work together to achieve quality that pays.
Customers are no fools and they don’t need labels to make the difference.
VC: What has been the most surprising thing you have learned about
cacao fermentation?
OF: The way flavours develop based on timing and braising is the key, acknowledging that you have made the necessary work to build functional fermentation boxes in a good environment. You can literally have two to three flavour profiles depending on genetics based on alteration of these two variables.
VC: How does weather affect the fermentation process?
OF: The variations of temperatures between winter and summer harvests are affecting the fermentation, at night the fermentation would slow down in winter forcing us to develop different fermentation profiles to get more even results across batches. The number of braising and days of fermentation has such an influence over the final result that we firmly believe it is the main trigger for variations of flavours from one farm to the next in a same region. The bacteria in the air are pretty consistent across the same region and so are the soils and water precipitations. It is virtually impossible to recreate the same fermenting conditions batch after batch unless it is done in a controlled environment like a lab. This is why we focussed on the process more and developed simple practice that would get consistency. Still we see variations over the seasons and batches.
VC: Have you experimented adding in other inclusions during the
fermentation process to add to the final flavor? If so, what are your thoughts
on that process? What are your thoughts on double fermentation? Any flavor
changes with that style?
OF: On a small scale we experimented inclusion of passion fruit
in the process which proves unsuccessful after roasting. Though we had
flavoured beans after drying with residual parts of passion fruits, these same
flavourful vegetal parts burned in the roasting process which was fairly
disappointing and didn’t have the effect we were expecting. There was a
remaining of acidity but you would not have been able to distinct from which
fruit is was. Now, there are so many variables that we can play with already
that inclusions are more of a trial for fun at this point in time. On a similar
experience, one of our bags travelled on a ship next to a hand of ripe bananas
and loaded in flavours which you could detect later in the process. At the time
we are more focused on ageing of nibs to see what can be achieved. If you don’t
see it in our range of chocolate, it means our attempt failed or was not
convincing enough.
VC: Is there anything you would like to see change about cacao
fermentation in the future?
OF:
We would love to see chocolate makers more involved in the fermentation
process itself. There is a hype about travelling the world to scout new beans
paid at farmer’s gate but little is shared about fermentation profiles. I like
the work of plantations like Ingemann who are offering two to three
fermentation profiles per genetics, this is future, this is how we’ll keep on
bringing new flavours and this is worth for cocoa butter too and the market of milk
and white chocolates.
Thank you so much for this interview on cacao fermentation Olivier!
*All photos in this interview were provided by Gaston Chocolat.
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