A little over a month ago, Greg and I were lucky enough to venture into the depths of Venezuela to meet some of our farmers.  Our goal was to make direct connections with farmers, complete the feedback loop, ensure the quality of the farm/workers,  and give them some chocolate made from their beans for them to taste.  With Patrick Pineda of Tisano as our guide, we visited 6 farms in five days, drove for over 48 hours, met amazing farmers, and didn’t get kidnapped.

And so the adventure begins…

Upon our arrival in Caracas, we had been informed that our adventure was starting immediately as a mini bus was coming at 1:30am and we would be driving 10+ hours south through the night to catch a ferry across the orinoco river to reach an indigenous group of Piaroans who grow cacao.

But not to worry, we had pillows!

Greg and I folded up into our tiny bench seat in the van and tried to catch a few winks.  This wasn’t really in the cards.  Between slowing down for the numerous speedbumps that herald the entrance and exit of every small town and a flash of the dome light every time we went over said speed bumps, our night of sleep was rather abbreviated or some might even say, nonexistent.

No matter.  We arrived in Caicara safely, and quickly stocked up on provisions (coffee, sugar, tuna, and bullets).  Yes, in Venezuela, one can never be too prepared.  The highlight of Caicara was a visit to the Piaroan’s representative.  He spoke both Spanish and Piaroan and was the one who organized the planting of their cacao trees twenty years ago believing it could be a good source of income for the village.

We met the representative at his home and the whole family turned out to greet us and look at the binder full of information about growing, harvesting, and processing cacao.  He was overjoyed that his long ago investment was finally paying off.

Next, we piled into a Toyota Landcruiser that we were assured could fit 16 people.   Greg and I looked skeptically in the back and began to realize that maybe they didn’t take into account that Americans are a bit bigger than even the tallest Piaroans (clocking in at about 5’2’’).  I scored the front middle seat (nice and cozy with the gearshift) while Greg climbed in back with our 5 traveling companions plus an indigenous woman, her two-year-old daughter, and her twelve-day-old infant.

I was instructed to try to nap as the road was only paved for an hour and then it would be rough going.  And off we went into the jungle!

The “road” quickly turned into a dirt trail filled with craters and with vegetation crowding in on either side.  We drove through a river and began the first of our many stream crossings.  We drove over 26 wooden “bridges” which consisted of two planks exactly the width of the tires on our vehicle.  At each crossing, one of our indigenous hosts would jump out of the truck and direct the driver so that the tires would line up exactly with each log.  As soon as we were aligned, the driver would gingerly drive forward until we were about half way and then he would gun the engine the rest of the way…as if the bridge might collapse underneath us.  I could almost hear the Indiana Jones’ theme song…

Around bridge number 13, our luck ran out.  The bridge was looking pretty sketchy and at every crossing our indigenous guide had regaled us with stories of how Uncle X went off this bridge on his moto, and Cousin Z broke through this bridge last year.  So some of us decided to walk across, while others of us (*cough* *cough* Greg) remained in the vehicle.  It looked like it was going to be an okay crossing.  The tires were lined up, the headlights were on, the driver inched forward. And then disaster struck.  The front wheel slipped off the log and all of the sudden, the 4×4 was balancing precariously on its axle.

Stay tuned for the next blog post to find out what happens to our fearless cocoa bean sourcers!

What does Bill Monroe (the Father of Bluegrass) love more than bluegrass?…CHOCOLATE!!! And where can you find both?

Come Sunday from 12-4pm to a pop-up parklet outside Dandelion! Caitlin, our fearless production manager, will be playing with her string band, The Twin-Not-Twins (or TNT for short), from 1:30pm until 2pm. At 2pm, we will have a chocolate tasting! Hope to see you all there!

It’s official, my first batch is complete and making its way into people’s mouths all over the country!

I could not be more excited as it was a long time coming.  This road began several months ago when I was in the process of becoming a full-fledged chocolate maker (I had been an apprentice chocolate maker until that point).  The last hurdle, after showing that I could complete all the steps of our process correctly and efficiently and passing a “background” chocolate knowledge exam, was to design a batch of my own.

Now I had been making chocolate for several months at this point, but I had followed prescribed processes that had been developed for each of our three origins at the time (Madagascar, Colombia, and Ocumare, Venezuela).  So I was given the option of ordering beans from a broker or using some of the beans that were already in storage.  I looked around at the beans on the market (and we already had samples many of them), but the pragmatist in me won out and I chose to use some organic Bolivian beans we already had on hand.

I launched into the first round of taste tests, excited at the prospect of my first batch.  I sat by the roaster eagerly awaiting the first crack, a common point of reference we use to start taste tests (when the first bean pops away from its husk). The trick is to wait for the first crack (or two) and then push the button on the roaster to start cooling the beans.  I pulled up my chair so my face was directly in front of the roaster, straining to hear over our roaster that elusive first crack.   I waited and waited and then I heard it, I got so excited I pressed the button starting the cooling cycle and then realized…I hadn’t looked at the time so the whole exercise of finding a reference point was lost.  So once I stopped blushing and feeling silly, I quickly prepped another kilo of beans and was at it again.  This time, it was a success.  To cover my bases I did a roast two minutes longer and another two minutes shorter.

In no time, all three 1 kilo batches were cracked, sorted, winnowed, ground and into the cocoatown (what we now call…mini) melangers.  A day later, they were ready to be cooled and tasted.  I excitedly brought them out at lunchtime for a group taste test.  We all tasted our pieces, prepared to be delighted by our newest taste test and it was AWFUL.  Poor Elaine, who was used to taste tests being fairly palatable, had a rather large chunk and I took one look at her face and told her it would be okay if she spit it out.  Really, it was terrible.

I kept at it.  Trying different roast profiles…a temperature spike at the beginning, a longer slower roast, and my colleagues were great sports and continued to taste the different test batches in all their glory.  Nothing was working.

Then, a giant order came in and my immediate production duties shelved batch development.  About a month went by and we were running out of Colombian beans, so all of the sudden, getting a new origin online was an urgent matter to avoid a bean crisis.  I was not feeling optimistic about the Bolivian beans filling the Colombian void, and then thankfully we had some newly arrived Venezuelan beans from the  Rio Caribe region by way of the Franceschi family.  I repeated the taste tests process and got excited when I was first cracking the beans and this amazing aroma was released.  The first round of taste tests were ALL delicious.  It was glorious compared to my previous attempts, and felt like such a luxury to pick the best from the really good.

We all agreed on a roast profile we liked and I got the go ahead to make a thirty kilo batch.  The batch tasted great and I was so excited to temper it.  But that wasn’t the end of the story, I put the chocolate in our temperamental temperer and it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the correct temperature to come out tempered before seizing (this is when cooled chocolate builds up in the pipes of the machines and simply stops coming out of the nozzle).  I tried for about 4 hours and only had 6 streaky bars to show for it.  I couldn’t stop thinking, what are we going to do as our supply of Colombian bars quickly dwindled.

I was bailed out by a new motor for the temperer.  It arrived just in the nick of time and was strong enough to pump that thick Rio Caribe through the pipes and into the molds at the correct temperature.  Thank goodness!

The Rio Caribe is just lovely–full of deep, dark chocolately richness and it just begs to be squished between graham crackers and a roasted marshmallow or smother a perfectly ripe strawberry.   It’s been well received at the Noe and Mission community farmers markets as well as around the factory.  One of our newest additions to the production crew, Joey, let it slip that this is his favorite origin yet.  Not to mention it got the stamp of approval from my Grammy.  So I could not be happier to share it will you all and hope you like it just as much as we do!

Cynthia giving me a chocolate high five!

All set for the Next Big Small Brand Event

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to accompany Todd to New York for the Next Big Small Brand Contest.  Picture this.

A room full of people excitedly salivating at the prospects of trying six different companies’ delicious attempts to win over the judges in their favor, a panel of celebrity judges (celebrities in the food world at least!), and two humble chocolate makers fresh off the plane from sunny California…fine let’s be honest, from not-as-sunny but still really awesome San Francisco.  The room is buzzing with foodies intent on exercising their honed taste buds to suss out who is going to be the next hottest food entrepreneur.  Questions fly.  Todd and I explain the nuances of our chocolate and how we can tease out the amazingly different flavors from just cocoa beans and sugar.  We refill the sample bowls, smile with delight as people’s expressions turn to shock and joy while taste traveling around the globe from Colombia to Venezuela and last, to Madagascar.

Many characters and a few familiar faces later, it is time to announce the winners…Todd and I make our way onto the stage.  After thank you’s all around, without a drum roll they announce people’s choice, a fellow SF company, Black Jet.  And the Next Big Small Brand Winner is…New York SuperFoods.  WAIT WHAT?  NOT DANDELION?  Hold up.

So we didn’t win.  But we met some amazing people, now have a beautifully done video about what we do, and NY SuperFoods is an awesome up-and-coming company who could really use the branding help to go big.  We were so lucky to be a part of the event and had a blast spreading the word about our chocolate to the other coast.

While we were in New York, we took the opportunity to stop by and see friends at the Meadow and Formaggio Essex (both carry our chocolate).  The Meadow’s display was beautiful and the shop was an oasis of calm in the craziness of New York.  Formaggio is located in food mecca with different vendors around the periphery reminiscent of markets in Europe.  We are so excited they are selling our chocolate.

The Meadow

We also took a field trip to the Bronx (I made it to 4 out of 5 boroughs while I was there!) to see Jim Greenberg at Union Confectionary who has a 1950′s Otto Hansel wrapping machine for us to check out.  He showed us around his wonderland of vintage temperers, panners (used to make chocolate covered nuts, etc), and other candy-making equipment.  The crowning glory (besides our excitement at seeing the wrapping machine) was a mini model chocolate factory built for the 1896 Chicago World’s Fair that purportedly inspired Hershey to move from confections to making chocolate.  It is crazy to me that factories used to be run from one engine attached to a series of giant leather belts…feeling pretty good about working in a “modern” chocolate factory.

The mini model chocolate factory that inspired Hershey to start making chocolate!

I even managed to squeeze in some touristy fun.  Todd was a great sport about being a “tourist” for the day (he is from Connecticut, which for you West coasters with hazy East coast geography is right next to New York).  Between calls back to the shop to make sure everything was going okay in SF, I managed to get him to pose for a picture at Grand Central Station and we may or may not have taken a whirl on the Staten Island ferry just to get a closer look at Lady Liberty.  We also did some “research” about what makes the best hot chocolate by sampling what NY had to offer.   We will be unveiling our results when our Valencia Street space opens.

Look at those goofy tourists at Grand Central Station

All in all, a great first trip to New York and being part of the Next Big Small Brand Contest was an amazing experience.