Archive | industry

Craft Chocolate:
Slow Food That’s Worth the Wait

February 18, 2020 by Emily Mantooth

Emily Mantooth is co-founding the Craft Chocolate Experience with us March 6-8, 2020. Her years of experience with the Dallas Chocolate Festival made her the perfect partner with whom to embark on this adventure. She has been the engine pushing the festival forward and so we thought you’d enjoy hearing about it from her perspective. We look forward to seeing you in March!

Making chocolate is a lesson in patience. To start, it takes a cacao tree about five years to grow enough to bear fruit. And even then it can take another four to five months (or longer) for the tree to actually produce that fruit in the form of cacao pods.

From there, beans are harvested, fermented, bagged, and shipped all around the world. This can also take months. For the craft chocolate maker, only the finest beans will find the way to the factory, assuring that the chocolate that is produced can highlight the nuances of these magical beans. And while the farmer may be looking to the next harvest, the maker’s work is just beginning: sorting, roasting, winnowing, grinding, conching, tempering….so many calibrated steps that all have to go perfectly to produce a high-quality bar.

And that’s just to make the chocolate. For confectioners, they take it a step further to create truffles, bonbons, and pastries that both taste delicious and look amazing.

So much work has gone into getting the chocolate made, but even that is not the end of the process. Once craft chocolate makers and chocolatiers perfect their recipes, they must add to that production the challenge of selling what they make. Decisions about product and shape, packaging, marketing, pricing, and shipping. Do we open a shop or just sell through others? Do we update our labels this year? How much should I produce of each product? How many beans should I buy? The rabbit holes are many and deep. So, while addressing the business decisions is a key part of actually making chocolate as a business, it is rare that a chocolate maker got into the business because of this step. And yet, day after day, amazing artisans grapple with these choices to keep their passion going.

As we put the finishing touches on Craft Chocolate Experience: San Francisco, I think about all those things daily. From the farmers to the folks wrapping bars that have come off the production line, everyone has a part to play in getting a delicious and beautiful piece of chocolate into the hands of someone who can enjoy its flavor while also appreciating all the time and energy and perseverance that it took to get it there.

We are thrilled that we have over 90 exhibitors coming to the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts from March 6-8 to tell their unique stories and share their amazing work. This truly is a chance like no other to learn and taste and experience the literal fruits of these labors. For our guests, this means tasting bars and confections from around the world, learning from industry experts on a range of in-depth topics, and also having some fun while gaining a deeper appreciation of what it takes to bring craft chocolate to market. These makers and their commitment to excellence, to doing things the right way, and to caring about the impact that their businesses can have on the communities they touch continue to inspire our whole Craft Chocolate Experience team.

So, while we excitedly count down the days until we see old friends and try new treats, our hope is that everyone who attends Craft Chocolate Experience this March shares our enthusiasm. We are mindful of the dedication, creativity, and tireless effort it takes to make each bar of chocolate…and we cannot wait to see these talented makers share that with every guest who comes into the Palace of Fine Arts.

Just as each chocolate bar begins with a cacao tree planted years before, we, too hope that Craft Chocolate Experience is just the beginning of a chocolate journey. That the things that guests taste and learn are the beginning of their own chocolate adventure….and we can’t hardly wait!

The 2017-2018 Sourcing Report is Ready

September 11, 2019 by Greg

I’m excited to say that we have finished our fourth annual(ish) Sourcing Report! These were huge years of growth for us and the industry at large, but also years when we learned some tough lessons. The first lesson was that it takes a lot longer to write a sourcing report than you might imagine, so we’ve decided to combine two years together. As always, our goal for this report is to help you learn and understand more about us and our chocolate, but more importantly, learn about the producers with whom we work. Each section of this report is dedicated to a single producer and we’ve tried our best to represent them in the way that they feel is most appropriate. This includes having each producer guide, contribute to, and review the content.

The first thing you might notice in this report is that we bought more cocoa in 2017 than we did in 2018. Does this mean that we’re shrinking? No, we are still growing, but this was our next big lesson: building in San Francisco takes a long time. We thought our new 16th Street Factory was going to be finished in 2018. Since we buy all of our cocoa one year in advance, this meant that we needed to buy a lot of beans in 2017 to prepare for our new facility, which is designed to use up to 200 tonnes of beans per year, and to supply our Valencia Street factory, which uses approximately 25 tonnes of cocoa annually, and our Kuramae factory, which uses around 30 tonnes. In 2017 we were excited to finally start buying larger quantities of beans and the producers with whom we work were thrilled. For cacao producers, having a customer buy more is almost always a great thing. The specialty cocoa industry is growing quickly and most producers have more supply than they have demand. Unfortunately, we were wrong about how long it would take to complete our new factory. The good news is that our new factory is open as of April 2019. The bad news is that we started buying larger quantities of beans too early, which means that we are still working through our backstock. This also means we incorrectly set expectations with the producers with whom we work. They have all been very understanding, but this is why we bought more beans in 2017 than in 2018. Our goal in working with producers is to buy the same quantity of beans from them or more year over year. We are not trying to find the cheapest cocoa that tastes good. We are trying to build longterm relationships with producers that grow over time so that we all benefit. Fortunately, our plan is to buy more beans in 2019 so we can get back on track with our producers.

In 2017 we also started our customer trip program in earnest. While we’ve done periodic customer trips over the years, we’ve now turned this into a consistent and core part of what we do. We’ve decided to visit three producers regularly: Maya Mountain Cacao in Belize, Zorzal Cacao in the Dominican Republic, and Kokoa Kamili in Tanzania. Each trip allows us to introduce our customers to a different view of cacao. Belize allows us to highlight cacao as an integral part of the local Maya culture. The Dominican Republic allows our customers to see what it is like to have cacao as a core part of a country’s economy. Tanzania allows us to bring people to an operation so far off the beaten path you have to drive two days to get there. I’m excited to lead each trip and to get to share a part of my life with people who are interested in learning more about cacao and the people who produce it.  For more information, please check out our website.

While things have changed here, there have also been changes in the industry. As an industry we are getting closer to having quality metrics for specialty cocoa, inspired by the work done for specialty coffee. Specialty coffee has a system known as Q grading developed by the Specialty Coffee Association that provides a well understood, trainable, and consistent methodology for scoring coffee. This score allows coffee producers to negotiate a price based on an understanding of how their coffee compares to the rest of the beans on the global market. Cocoa does not have a similar grading system. Several chocolate makers and industry members have developed systems over the years, but none of them are universally accepted as of yet. We haven’t even agreed on what to call specialty cocoa, er, I mean fine flavor cocoa. While we have our work cut out for us, we are making progress. My sense is that the goals of a unified system for cocoa evaluation are:
– To analyze unroasted beans to allow producers to evaluate small lots of cocoa in a very short time frame.
– To rely on cheap equipment (so that even small, poorer producers can use the methodology if they would like to).
– The ability to be trainable everywhere in the world.
– To yield a consistent score for cocoa beans that everyone can agree upon.
If we could accomplish these goals we’d be well on our way. Carla Martin and the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute have developed a protocol that gets us much closer than we’ve ever been before. We are now working on the last mile to agree on a way to use the protocol in order to create a score that can be used by everyone. I hope that our next sourcing report will start with a discussion of how great this new methodology has become.

Lastly, the biggest challenge that the specialty cocoa industry is facing now is that it has grown faster than the demand from chocolate makers. There are great beans everywhere! The overall quality of what we taste as samples has gone up dramatically just since 2014. But, there either needs to be larger makers or there needs to be a larger number of makers willing to buy these beans at a premium price. While I believe this will happen eventually, right now it is a struggle for many cocoa producers to sell everything they produce. In this report we’ll talk about some of these situations and how it has impacted the producers.

While we continued to grow in 2017 and 2018, 2019 is the year that we finished our new factory. This means that we’ll be able to increase our consumption of cocoa as we had planned to do two years ago. We are now connecting our customers to cocoa producers more closely than ever before through our trips, and we are on the verge of having a consistent system for evaluating cocoa from around the world. The specialty cocoa and craft chocolate industry are both growing, and I couldn’t be happier. With growth comes more learning, better livelihoods for producers, and, of course, more chocolate!

Read the 2017-2018 Sourcing Report

Greg D’Alesandre
Chief Sourcing Officer, Dandelion Chocolate

Chocolate 301: Our Trip to Belize in 2019

May 8, 2019 by The Dandelion Team

Rebecca and Renee wrote this blog post together, and they were fortunate enough to attend our annual guest trip to Belize that we offer each February (just one of the many perks in working for a chocolate company—in addition to all of the chocolate you care to eat). This trip is one of many that we’ve taken as a team: Greg visited in 2013, and Molly had a look a year later, but this is the first for Renee and Rebecca. Renee is a chocolate maker at our Valencia Street factory. Rebecca was formerly the manager of the Valencia Street café, but she just became the Director of the Chocolate Experiences team. Warning: their travelogue will make you want to pack your bags.

Hello Dandelion Friends! This February we had the opportunity to attend a Chocolate 301 cocoa trip: an interactive, hands-on, seven-day exploration into the world of cacao in the southern tip of Belize. Along with Greg, our Bean Sourcerer, and 11 chocolate aficionados from across North America, we stayed at the very scenic Chaab’il B’e Lodge in Punta Gorda. We ate amazing chocolate-infused meals and washed them down with local cacao rum and Coke prepared by lodge owners, Sheila and Rusty.

Diving right into the jungles of Belize, we spent our first day touring Eladio’s farm where we learned about the gospel of cacao, and the harmony between man and earth that helps synthesize healthy plant growth. As he led us through his farm, Eladio would stop to pick what appeared to be random plants and teach us about the benefits they have on the body, as well as how they contribute to the growth of the entire ecostructure. We ate hearts of palm, sugar cane, cacao, and corn right out of the ground! It was a wild jump into the deep end of Belize. He stopped to cut open a cacao pod and said, “now we look for faces.” As Eladio explained it, the faces that can be identified in the raw pod give us insight into all of the animals and creatures that love to eat them! I found Stitch. What faces do you see?

After our long trek through Eladio’s wild farm, we finished the day with a delicious, home-cooked Belizean meal and a lesson on making traditional Mayan drinking chocolate.

Another day, we went to Xibun Reserve, a former Hershey plantation of 1100 acres that has been revamped and is now growing cacao and citrus. It is HUGE. We spent a bumpy couple of hours riding through the orange groves and rows of cacao trees in the back of a tractor. We got to see firsthand as the farmers split the cacao pods and harvested the wet beans. It was mind-blowing to see how easily and quickly they got the pods open because they are so thick! We also hopped down from our iron chariot to walk around through the trees, enjoying the variety of colors that each pod produced. The trees were full of beautiful flowers and budding cacao pods. Seeing the difference in how the cacao trees were kept at Xibun and at Eladio’s was really interesting. Xibun had very well-kept, neat rows of trees that were in stark contrast to the wild jungle of Eladio’s farm. Even as we rode around the tractor at Xibun, one side was all cacao—and then we’d turn around and see all citrus. It was surreal.

On Valentine’s Day we went to Maya Mountain Fermentary. The name may sound familiar to some of you who may have tried our Maya Mountain, Belize chocolate bars—feel free to learn more about how Elman developed this bar’s flavor profile. Maya Mountain is an organization, not a co-op, from where we source our delicious Belizean beans. They collect wet beans from farmers around Belize and ferment the beans at their location in Punta Gorda. This experience took the term “hands on” to a whole new level! We got to actually stick our hands in the gooey fermentation boxes to see how much heat they produce! We also got to taste the beans at different stages of fermentation and drying. The flavor of the nibs changed significantly from one to four days of fermentation, as well as at different stages of drying. Truly in her element, Renee got right to work, showing the team how we sort beans and explaining what we look for in this process. We learned what their quality manager looks for when they sort before packaging and sending beans to the chocolate makers. She then showed us what she looks for when she grades beans. She could look at a cut test and see how far along fermentation had occurred. We then tasted a wide selection of chocolate made with Maya Mountain beans from other makers. As a chocolate maker, this is one of Renee’s favorite things to do. One origin can taste so vastly different depending on the maker, but there remains a consistent character from the terroir that is discernible in each bar from the same origin.

On our last day, we went to Copal Tree Lodge where we walked around their beautiful garden and made chocolate with their chocolate maker. It was amazing to learn about their process and see that one chocolate maker takes ownership of every step! He gave us beans to taste from different times in the roast. We could taste the flavors evolving. Then we got to winnow the freshly roasted beans. It was very therapeutic, like raking a zen garden. After this, the chocolate maker showed off his skills and hand-tempered a large batch of chocolate right in front of us for us to pour into molds. To remove air bubbles from the bars in our factory, we rely primarily on a vibrating table. At Copal Tree, they rely on the more rudimentary system of slamming the chocolate mold against a table to remove air bubbles—a very satisfying alternative. It was incredible to see such a large batch of chocolate hand-tempered with such ease. He didn’t even need a thermometer; he could just feel the change in viscosity and knew when it was ready!

This doesn’t even scratch the surface on what happened on the trip. There was so much more that can’t be captured with words or pictures. It was really refreshing to be around so many people who are passionate about chocolate; not just the customers, but also the farmers, fermenters, and other makers. It was so eye-opening to see how much goes into making a treat that the world enjoys. 10/10 would go back on this trip! Without question, it is worth every drop of bug repellant, sweat, and slathering of sunscreen!

To Belize with Love and Chocolate,

Renee and Rebecca

PS: Want to learn more about what life is like in Belize? Maya moved there to deepen her work in chocolate, and our friend Madeline shares her story of living there for several months.

A Visit to Areté Chocolate

February 26, 2019 by Ryan O'Connell

Ryan is a chocolate maker at our 16th Street factory, as well as a frequent traveler and motorcycle enthusiast.

Before Areté Fine Chocolate moved from Milpitas, California to Spencer, Tennessee in spring of 2018, Eric, Snooky, and myself had the pleasure of seeing the glory of what was, at the time, still their semi-operational facility before they’d fully packed up for their move. Areté Chocolate is owned and operated by David and Leslie Senk. As of our visit, David and Leslie were Areté’s only employees.

After meeting the Senks and seeing their process, it was abundantly apparent they are people of high personal and professional integrity, which very much shines through in their careful processing and top-shelf chocolate. Throughout the day, as our conversations meandered through chocolate theory, some noteworthy similarities and differences between us stood out:

We both believe in the importance of data collection to understand outcomes in the chocolate making process.
We both believe that when the chocolate is tempered may make a difference in its flavor. Aging chocolate and its impact on flavor is something we look forward to testing in more depth.
Areté removes the radicle from all of their beans, which is something we’ve always wanted to do and are we are working towards.
Much of their process is a result of custom and creative adaptations to fit their evolving needs while not sacrificing quality. Similarly, improving our quality is central to – and runs parallel with – our reflexive metrics for success as we continue to grow.
Areté makes all their chocolate in mini melangers, such as the ones we use for experiments.
David believes temperature control is crucial to consistent, predictable flavor.
We both believe that testing one variable at a time through experimentation is the best practice.
We’ve developed our own process for removing broken and moldy beans prior to roasting. At Areté, all moldy beans are removed after the beans are broken, one by one, through his mechanized, creatively-engineered process, speaking to the ingenuity and passion behind the operation.
After roasting in a convection oven, David’s beans are removed and then rapidly cooled to prevent any further, unwanted roasting. In a similar fashion, our beans are cooled in our drum roaster’s cooling tray post-roast.

The refining and conching room of Areté Chocolate

Takeaways to consider for experimentations or reinforcing in our current chocolate making practices:

We should continue to consider results of experiments done by others, while holding off on drawing any conclusions until a hypothesis can be tested through our own experiments.
We should also continue to revisit the effects of aging chocolate, with future experiments to support our previous investigations.
We should investigate further experiments testing the effects of melanger chocolate temperature, which may lead to more stringent temperature control guidelines and an improved understanding of how process temperature directs flavor.
Consider moving toward 2:1 mineral oil to chocolate ratio when testing microns via micrometer.

My personal favorite part of the tour: Talking with all those present about chocolate, life, and the chocolate life; seeing the incredible passion, enthusiasm, and dedication that the Senks have for making great chocolate.

Favorite origin/product: Ben Tre, Vietnam

Fun fact: We will be working with Ben Tre cocoa beans and releasing our take on the origin in 2019!

Biggest challenges: Possibly scaling up while maintaining quality, and chocolate making as a sustainable business.

A Visit to ÓBOLO Chocolate in Santiago, Chile

October 10, 2018 by Ryan O'Connell

Ryan is a chocolate maker at our 16th Street factory, as well as a frequent traveler and motorcycle enthusiast. Inspired by the Chilean kung fu film Kiltro, he bought a motorcycle to ride to the Atacama desert of northern Chile, ultimately crossing into Argentina to catch the final stages of the world-famous Dakar Rally. While in Santiago, Chile, he had to visit our friends at ÓBOLO Chocolate to taste their amazing 70% Cacao con Nibs bar. This is what he found.

In January of 2018, while in Chile, I had the opportunity to stop by ÓBOLO Chocolate in Santiago’s Barrio Italia neighborhood. This mainly residential area of Santiago, although not as busy as other areas, has a decent level of foot traffic with plenty of cafes, restaurants, shops, and small factories peppered throughout the area. ÓBOLO, located on Avenida Italia, is rather unassuming from the outside; I missed it the first time I passed by. The color of the chocolate brown building foreshadows what can be found inside. Established in 2014, ÓBOLO is Chile’s first bean-to-bar chocolate maker. ÓBOLO makes two-ingredient chocolate bars as well as flavor-infused, dark milk, and inclusion bars.

Walking in, as would be expected, the aroma of chocolate hits you immediately. To the right, bags of Peruvian (Pangoa) cocoa beans. To the left, a product display table with cocoa beans and cocoa powder. Straight ahead, a display case with various chocolate bars and treats like chocolate-dipped candied ginger.

The People

The company has just five employees. Chances are you will be greeted by the owner and founder of ÓBOLO, Mark Gerrits (an expatriate from the United States). Mark was introduced to cacao back in 2001 while living in Ecuador’s Amazon region working with direct trade practices and cocoa producing communities. If Mark is busy in the back, you’ll probably meet one of the other team members – Geraldine Mondaca (a Santiago native and ÓBOLO´s uber-friendly store manager) or Gabriel Marques (the Head Chocolate Maker from Venezuela).

The Equipment

The production equipment at ÓBOLO is robust and pretty standard for a chocolate maker of its size, and also an amazing display of homemade tools that get the job done. They’re roasting cocoa beans with a modified homemade 10kg nut roaster. For a winnower (the machine that removes the cracked papery husk from roasted cocoa beans), they use a machine that was designed and built for them in Perú. They also use a 100lb Diamond grinder to make their chocolate, and their tempering machine was a familiar site. Just like us, they use a Unica machine to temper the chocolate at the right temperature to make a finished bar snappy and shiny. (Here’s more info on how chocolate is made.)

The Challenges

After speaking with the team, they mentioned that the winnowing process was bulletproof. It was also interesting to learn about the biggest challenges in their production. Like any chocolate maker, consistency in tempering is an issue. Some finished bars just look richer, darker, and shinier than others; the root is usually an imbalance in the quality or quantity of ideal crystals. Developing the flavor profile of each harvest year to year is also tricky. The roast and conch of each new batch of beans (the part of production that contributes to flavor development and mouthfeel) can be challenging to get right. Daily and weekly production and logistics flow is also tough for a small maker who is trying to be conscientious of their product. The planning, documenting, and traceability of each bar is something that ÓBOLO works at with gusto.

It can be easy to take for granted how much energy, passion, care, teamwork, and coordination go into making great chocolate at any scale, and I learned a lot by watching a small craft maker. It’s amazing to see how far the bean-to-bar New American Chocolate Movement revolution has reached, and I can’t wait to visit again.

An Interesting Read on Brazilian Cacao

August 1, 2018 by Greg

While we don’t normally repost stories onto our blog, I thought it was worth calling this one out. One might say Brazil keeps crossing our path. Dandelion has been interested in working with cacao from Brazil for many years. Our sugar comes from Brazil and we’d be excited to have a bar where all of the ingredients are from Brazil.

Tuta, Greg, and Juliana at Vale Potomuju

A few years ago we had the pleasure of hosting Sarah Hartman, the Brazilian Chocolate Maker of Harper Macaw, for the summer. One of our previous Chocolate Makers, Arcelia Gallardo, eventually moved to Brazil and started Mission Chocolate, making some of the tastiest Brazilian bars I’ve had. So much Brazil! I’ve met many interesting and talented people in Brazil and after visiting Brazil this past May, I am quite optimistic about the bean-to-bar industry there. Many producers are also making chocolate from their own beans, creating a tight feedback loop to help improve quality and flavor.

The reason I wanted to highlight this piece in particular is because it does a great job of explaining a very complex and challenging topic – the devastation of the Brazilian Cacao industry – as well as highlighting Juliana and Tuta, two cacao producers in Brazil who have been doing an incredible job rehabilitating their farm (which I was able to visit in May) as well as producing tasty chocolate. With all of that being said, I hope you enjoy the read: https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/27/bioterrorism-in-bahia-witches-broom-chocolate/

2018 Chocolate Maker Summer Camp!!!

April 16, 2018 by Greg

While I don’t typically start a post with an apology, this post is aimed at chocolate makers and professionals in the Chocolate and Cacao community. I apologize if this post causes any sort of undue disappointment to others who don’t work in chocolate and enjoy reading our blog!

One of the things we enjoy the most about making chocolate is the amazing community of people who share our passion. From June 26th – 29th this year a number of chocolate makers will be once again hosting our annual Chocolate Maker Summer Camp (a.k.a. The Funconference)! We do this once a year as an opportunity for people who work in chocolate and cacao from all over the world to come together for a few days of relaxation on a lake in upstate New York. Camp is held for 4 days and 3 nights at the Berskshire Hills Eisenberg Camp. There will be activities (including swimming, archery, and campfires) as well as plenty of time to chat with others in the community. As a bit of incentive I’ve included some photos from last year and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact camp@chocolatemaker.org.

NOTE: We are sorry to say that summer camp is only open to industry members (chocolate makers, cacao producers, etc).

Greg

Getting good grades for Cacao

July 14, 2017 by Greg

I remember talking to Carla Martin at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in 2015 about her creation of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute (FCCI). Part of her goal for FCCI was to create a standard (similar to specialty coffee cupping) which could be used across the cacao and chocolate industry to consistently and accurately communicate about flavor. This is something I’d been wanting for a very long time as it’s quite hard for cacao producers and chocolate makers to speak the same language when it comes to the organoleptic evaluation of cacao. Cacao producers tend to taste fermented and dried beans, chocolate makers tend to taste liquor; the flavors in each often being very different. This is where the FCCI protocol comes in – it is a step beyond tasting a bean and a step before tasting liquor and can be done easily, cheaply, repeatably, and quickly enough that it can be useful for all parties. Full information on the FCCI protocol can be found on the FCCI website.

FCCI Field Kit (and beans and chocolate)

I’m going to talk about my nascent use of this protocol for cacao evaluation, but before I do, I want to be clear that at this point I’m not certain this will solve all our sensory evaluation challenges. As I’ve used it, I think where this protocol shines is in comparisons rather than absolutes. In fairness the protocol was designed to be used in the absolute and maybe as I use it more, I’ll change my mind :). The great thing about this protocol is even without a lot of training, if you are trying to understand variations in day lots while producing cacao, this is great. If you are a chocolate maker trying to understand variations in harvest from the year before, this will work well. If you are visiting a new cacao producer and want to get a sense of the beans, this is just great! While I think this protocol does a good job of helping understand positive traits and defects in beans, I’m not certain it can be used on its own to determine if beans will make great chocolate (as opposed to just good chocolate). Ed Seguine’s insight about the FCCI protocol is that he felt it would help you understand if you want to turn beans into liquor, which is a much more arduous process. Clearly, this protocol doesn’t mean people magically understand how to differentiate all the various attributes of cacao, that takes time and lots of tasting (and FCCI is working toward making this sort of training available to all). But, even if you just want to start off by understanding how today’s beans compare to last week’s beans, it’s useful.

I also should note that it seems the best way to give feedback on cacao is breaking it up into:

Physical quality: this is an assessment of the quantity of rocks, flats, broken beans, etc
Sensory analysis: this is the goal of the FCCI cacao grading – understanding, as well as providing feedback on, the organoleptic qualities of the beans. This should be objective and, if everyone is well trained and calibrated, it should be consistent across assessments
Hedonic preference: this is subjective and comes down to whether you like the beans and/or think they could work well for you as a buyer

My last caveat is what I am describing here is what I might refer to as the FCCI cacao grading field protocol. The more formal lab protocol was linked above. The formal protocol calls for a different set of tools but it was a set of tools I couldn’t fit into my standard traveling gear. So, I talked to Carla and came up with a smaller set of gear that I’d be willing to carry all the time. The FCCI protocol also has a paper form. I made an offline-capable app.

Breaking up beans in the DR

The field protocol variant I’ve been using has the following steps:

– Pull 100g of beans using a scale and evaluate external characteristics. I will sometimes skip this step for things like day lots which don’t change much.

– Perform a cut test on 50 beans and record the results. Again, if I am just trying to get the flavor, I sometimes skip this.

– Pull a set of 20 beans at random, break up, and peel all 20 beans. If they’re tough to crack, try with a nutcracker. This is important, as you need to use all the beans, not just the ones that are easy to peel, because the tough ones often impact the flavor significantly.

– Put the broken beans (aka unroasted nibs) into your grinder

– Sing a little song while grinding up the beans until they are all ground up!

– Mix the resulting powder to homogenize. This is one of the best aspects of this protocol, tasting 3 or 4 beans doesn’t give you a sense of a whole lot, creating a powder both releases aromatics but also allows you to taste a larger sample size consistently.

– Evaluate aromatics by reading each criterion on the scoring sheet, smelling the sample, and giving a score. It’s a lot easier to smell one time for each criterion than trying to remember the sensation of them all.

Final powder to sample

– Evaluate the flavors by taking a 1/8 teaspoon sample of the powder and putting it into your mouth. While smelling beans multiple times is easy, tasting that many times is harder so I suggest tasting the sample and then scoring a quickly as possible while it is fresh in your mind. Feel free to spit it out!

There are times I just do aroma and taste and other times I do a full evaluation. I don’t tend to do a cut test but others might like to. I am new to this, I only started using this methodology on a recent trip to the Solomon Islands (sponsored by PHAMA who is doing some great work in the Pacific islands with cacao). What I found was it gave me a good, consistent way to evaluate someone’s cacao. It was thorough enough that you felt comfortable with the result and didn’t take months to give initial thoughts on beans. It also gave me a good opportunity to sit with producers for a few minutes touching and tasting their beans, almost like a little ritual so that they knew I was taking the evaluation seriously rather than tasting 3 beans from a bag and saying “hmmm.” It’s hard to get to know people in short visits and any opportunity to build rapport is worth exploring.

This protocol helped me understand which beans seemed good enough to get a sample and process into chocolate. Narrowing which beans to get for sampling is helpful as one of the worst things a chocolate maker can do is get a sample and not give feedback. Samples take a lot of time and energy for producers to pull together and ship. If you don’t want to give feedback, don’t get a sample. I partially say this as I am guilty of it as well. There have been times we’ve gotten busy, haven’t processed a sample and each time I know I have wronged the producer who sent us the sample, I should’ve just not asked for one at that point in time.

Sample page of GoCanvas app for Field Evals

The app I made saves a GPS point, photos, and scores which help me keep track of samples. The app also creates a PDF (such as Solomons-Waisu-Evaluation) which is helpful to give back to the people you are working with. Carla and FCCI are working to make a free, standardized app for evaluation. Until that point I will happily share the app I made, if you are interested, just email me at gregd@dandelionchocolate.com for more information!

It feels to me like this is a great step in the evolution of cacao sensory evaluation. I’m sure there is more to come but, if you are a cacao producer looking for a consistent way to evaluate lots or a chocolate maker looking for a lightweight evaluation method, give it a try! This is a living protocol and FCCI is looking for any feedback users have to iterate on it and make it more useful, feel free to drop them a line at contact@chocolateinstitute.org with any thoughts you might have. If you have any questions for me about this I am happy to answer them, feel free to email or drop by our shop if you are in the SF bay area!

Education Station: Ca-what?

June 29, 2017 by Kelsey

You’re curious, so we find answers. Our education team fields lots of questions from our guests during classes, so we’ve decided to launch a brand new series of monthly installments in which we tackle some of those questions and share the answers with the world. We call it The Education Station. This week, Kelsey dives into clarifying some commonly mis-used words – namely what plant chocolate does and does not come from.

Sometimes, when we’re deep in conversation with a class attendee or a guest in our cafe, some very similar sounding — but very different meaning — words come up. And those words, if misused, can create a bit of confusion. So let’s discuss coca, coco, cocoa, and cacao, and how, if any of them are related to chocolate.

First, let’s talk about what they have in common: These are all plants. They grow in the tropics. Aaand that’s about it. Below, we’ll dig into each of them, but a quick disclaimer before we get started: the definitions here are our own, unless noted otherwise, and refer primarily to terminology used in the United States. You may find slightly different definitions elsewhere, and we’ll do our best to explain how we arrived at the words we use.

So what is coca?

Coca [koh-kuh]: any of several South American shrubs (genus Erythroxylon, family Erythroxylaceae); especially : one (E. coca) that is the primary source of cocaine. (Merriam Webster)

Leaves of the South American shrub, of the Erythroxylon genus

The plant itself is native to the Andean region of South America and grows relatively easily in mid to high altitudes. When consumed, the primary alkaloid in the plant, cocaine, acts as a stimulant by constricting blood vessels. Coca only becomes dangerous when the cocaine alkaloid is extracted, concentrated, processed and synthesized. Although coca may receive a bad rap due to its modern day uses and cultivation (think Narcos, the TV show), the traditional and practical uses are much more innocent than many think. Often consumed by chewing the leaves, or as a tea, coca has been, and is still, used to relieve pain, altitude sickness and even suppress hunger.

Dried coca leaves, steeped in hot water used as tea

The coca leaf has actually been used for thousands of years, with some of the oldest evidence pointing to nomadic tribes scattered throughout the Andes in Northern Peru, around 1800 B.C. These tribes migrated with the changing of seasons, avoiding the harsh conditions of the mountains in search of food and shelter. This required walking up and down the high altitudes of the Andes for long, extended periods of time, where food was often scarce along the way. Naturally, the healing properties of the coca plant allowed many tribes to move frequently and was used as a sacred medicine.

Coca is also known as one of the first domesticated plants in recorded history. Once early explorers of the region began growing the crop for medicinal purposes, the cultivation expanded and evolved as more was understood about the plant. By concentrating of the cocaine alkaloid in order to produce a high demand drug, coca turned into the high-risk cash crop it is now commonly known for.

It is not related to chocolate, in anyway whatsoever. Bummer, I know.

What is coco?

Coco [koh-koh]: the coconut palm; the drupaceous fruit of the coconut palm whose outer fibrous husk yields coir and whose nut contains thick edible meat and, in the fresh fruit, a clear liquid (see coconut water) (Merriam Webster)

Dandelion Bean Sourcerer, Greg, drinking a coconut

Coconuts! From the now popular coconut water, touted as a magic cure for one too many adult beverages, to clothing made from the fibrous husk — the coconut has become an important global commodity with rising popularity and variety of uses. As Science Daily put it, “The coconut […] is the Swiss Army knife of the plant kingdom; in one neat package it provides a high-calorie food, potable water, fiber that can be spun into rope, and a hard shell that can be turned into charcoal. What’s more, until it is needed for some other purpose it serves as a handy flotation device.”

Fibrous coconuts, showing dark spots resembling faces

Often called the Tree of Life, the coconut palm (coco nucifera) has been supporting the local economies of many tropical countries for centuries. The first recorded discoveries of the coconuts were arguably by 15th century Portuguese explorers in Southeast Asia. They described the coconut shell as “coco” meaning “head or face,” for the characteristic the dark holes that resembled two eyes and a mouth.

Coconuts are also unrelated to chocolate, but you probably already guessed that.

What is cacao?

Cacao [kuh-kah-oh]: the fatty seeds of a South American evergreen tree (Theobroma cacao of the family Sterculiaceae) that are used in making chocolate.

Theobroma Cacao tree, bearing pods

It’s more than just a funny word from a Portlandia skit. Cacao is the seed of a tree, and it grows inside of a pod filled with pulpy fruit. To make chocolate, these seeds are traditionally harvested, fermented, dried, roasted, cracked and winnowed, then ground down with sugar. But at some point in this process, the cacao becomes cocoa. Chocolate has been made from cacao for a very long time, and it has a long and deep global history, much of which is widely still unknown. Most of what we do know about chocolate only happened in the last one to two hundred years, but we know it’s existed for thousands! (If you’d like to learn more about the history of chocolate, we’d love to host you in our Edible History of Chocolate classes).

So, if cacao is a seed that becomes chocolate, then what is cocoa, and what is a cocoa bean?

A harvested cacao pod, displaying the pulpy fruit surrounding cacao seeds

Good question. Even in dictionaries, cacao and cocoa are often used interchangeably. Because of that lack of clarity, the craft chocolate community has been trying to come to an agreement about how we all define things, including the difference between cacao and cocoa. One simple distinction that we like to make is that cacao refers to the unprocessed state, while cocoa is the processed state. But here is where it gets a little more complicated.

When does ‘processing’ begin? The minute human hands are involved, say at harvest? Or, is it when the chemical state of the seed has shifted, say during fermentation?

: Harvesting pods

: Un fermented, fresh cacao seeds

We like this summarized definition that was shared with us by the folks at the Cocoa Research Center at the University of the West Indies.

“The cacao becomes cocoa when the cotyledon dies. The cotyledon is the part of the seed that would become the first leaves of the plant. The death of the cotyledon changes the future of the seed; it ceases to be a plant and will become something tasty to eat instead. This simple distinction helps us identify when the destiny of the cacao changes from becoming a living thing to becoming a product.”

So, put simply?

Cocoa [koh-koh]: the seeds of the Theobroma cacao tree, once the fermentation process has killed the cotyledon.

But, wait, what about cocoa powder? Isn’t that “cocoa”?

Cocoa powder; what remains of cocoa nibs after the cocoa butter is pressed out

Well yes. Kind of. Out in the world, sometimes the word cocoa, or ‘hot cocoa’, is used in reference to cocoa powder. Cocoa powder is made by pressing most of the fat (or cocoa butter, rather) out of winnowed cocoa beans, and then grinding up the solid mass that’s left after the pressing.

So technically, if you’re using our definition of things, cocoa powder is cocoa because the cotyledon is definitely dead, but the word cocoa could refer to a lot of things, not necessarily only cocoa powder. It’s one of those ‘a-square-is-a-rectangle-but-a-rectangle-isn’t-a square’ kind of definition.

Clear as mud, right? If anything, I hope you’ve taken away a few lessons from this little rundown. Namely, chocolate is not a narcotic or a coconut.

In summary:

COCA: Coca leaves were once a spiritual and medicinal plant that, over time and with heavy processing, turned into a controlled substance. Coca has nothing to do with chocolate.

COCO: Although many chocolate makers may use various parts of the coconut palm in their chocolate for additional flavor, chocolate itself does not come from coco(nut).

CACAO: The seed which grows off the Theobroma Cacao tree and is the main ingredient for chocolate.

COCOA: A debated term. Often alone, cocoa refers to a comforting hot chocolatey drink (at least in the United States). Within the chocolate industry, many use cocoa or cocoa bean to differentiate a cacao seed once it has been processed.

References:

Coca:

http://www.cocamuseum.com/history-of-the-coca-plant/

https://www.tni.org/en/primer/coca-leaf-myths-and-reality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca#Traditional_uses

Coco:

http://www.coconutrepublic.org/coconut_story.php

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624142037.htm

Cocoa:

https://sta.uwi.edu/cru/

Dynamic Duos: The Inside Scoop on Pairings

May 25, 2017 by Jessica Robin

Here at Dandelion Chocolate, we LOVE food. The chocolate-y items, of course, but it doesn’t stop there. Talking about flavor and taste is an everyday occurrence around here. It’s also a big part of our jobs. As the Event Manager, one of the things that I get to do is organize and enjoy all of our pairing events, which means tasting a lot of delicious things, with a lot of nice people.

I often think of pairings in the following way: individually, chocolate and another food item may each taste amazing, but when you pair them together, they could taste like pond water, soap, or an unidentified yuck. That’s what I consider a bad pairing. No offense to pond water. But, if you taste two yummy things alone and when they’re combined, they create a whole new taste sensation that calls to mind something that neither product was able to reveal on it’s own, that’s a great pairing. And sometimes a great pairing is also an opportunity to get to know your fellow tasters a little bit better.

One of the things that I love most about these types of events is hearing what other people taste when we pair different things together. Barbecue potato chips? Margarita pizza? A rocky stream bed? Birthday cake? Chocolate croissants? Orange blossom water? What?! I mean yum! It is exciting when a particular pairing really invokes a specific emotional response for someone, like memories from childhood or travel. Usually these taste sensations are really, really specific and include time, place and people. Like the milk left over from that cereal with colored marshmallows. Or a bowl of summer berries with not-too-sweet homemade whipped cream. Or that time that you burned the chocolate chip cookies just a little bit, but ate them all anyways. It is amazing that so many nuances can often be discovered with such simple ingredients, like sugar and cocoa beans.

For me, it’s a treat to really get to savor a pairing combination. To spend the meditative time, projecting my laser-focused attention on the textures of a floral tea, or the peachy melon sweetness of an unpasteurized sake. To just think about the notes that I taste. That’s it. The slightly malty, slightly bitter quality of melting dark chocolate. The breezy berry notes and pinging acidity of an African coffee.The toothsome hamminess of a great gouda. It also helps that there are no wrong answers or very many rules. Everyone tastes differently and will prefer one pairing over the other. Sometimes, I even play Devil’s Advocate and try to match the two most outlandish items together — just for fun!

Hosting, planning, and participating in these chocolate pairing events has made me change my mind about what my favorite and not-so favorite Dandelion chocolate bars are – welcome back to #1, Madagascar! I the love the challenge of trying to find a good match for a strong Pu’er tea, or a bold blue cheese. If you think that you know all the nuances of your favorite Dandelion Chocolate bar, that there is nothing new left to discover, I invite you to pair it with a great quality cheese, sake, coffee or tea. See where it takes you. Hopefully to a newfound sense of excitement and curiosity about food and flavor.

Check our website here for the listing of our upcoming pairing classes in May and June.