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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

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!

Getting a little Husky

June 21, 2017 by Greg

We recently changed our menu to include an item which is made by infusing it with cacao husk. This led to a few questions, concerns, and some confusion, so it seemed like a good opportunity to talk husk in more detail, discuss our understanding of husk, and encourage a bit of caution toward the potential risk of using husk for food products.

Anatomy of a cocoa bean

Let’s start at the beginning. Cocoa beans have an outer coating, sometimes known as shell, husk, or seed coat, that, while composed of a few things, is primarily fiber. It’s actually pretty neat, it serves to protect the bean, or seed, until it germinates. When I say that the husk “protects” the seed, this includes absorbing many heavy metals that might be present in the environment and blocking fungi and other microorganisms from penetrating and destroying the bean.

At the point of germination, a taproot pops through the husk, the bean pushes up out of the ground (buoyed by the taproot) and forms a cotyledon which nourishes the plant until it has formed enough leaf area to live and grow using photosynthesis. Sounds useful, right? If the husk isn’t cracked on a bean when it gets to you, you can feel relatively confident that the bean inside isn’t moldy as no spores can get in to grow mold. Yay! Three cheers for the husk!

So, what’s the catch? Why don’t people use husk for all sorts of things? As you might imagine, heavy metal and microbiological contamination, which the husk prevent from reaching the nib, don’t just disappear, they stick with (and to) the husk. Sadly, it gets worse, when cocoa beans ferment and dry, fungi will sometimes grow on the husk and these fungi can produce mycotoxins (specifically alflatoxins and ochratoxins). You might guess from the name that mycotoxins are toxic to human beings and additionally, unlike most microorganisms, aren’t destroyed by heat. Lastly, if the beans aren’t dried and stored in a relatively secure area, chickens can run through them and flies can land on them which can contaminate beans with listeria, salmonella or E. Coli (among other things). So, as a chocolate maker, one of the first things we do is remove the husk from our cocoa beans. This is partly because of possible contamination and partly because it doesn’t refine well (after all, it’s mostly fiber!). Hence the winnowing step in our production process, it separates the husk from the nibs, giving us clean nibs to make into chocolate and leaving husk as byproduct. Boo! Three jeers for the husk!

So, why add a panna cotta that has been infused with husk to our chef’s tasting menu? It is partly that the flavor from a husk infusion is different than a nib infusion, and we really liked the flavor. Also, our production process generates a fair amount of husk as a byproduct and we are always interested in doing better things with waste products than wasting them. While we typically give our husk to Bi-rite market’s farms to use as mulch, finding other uses is, well, useful.

The controversial question is how do we know that we aren’t also putting all sorts of awful things into the panna cotta when we are giving it that husky flavor? Honestly, there is no way to be completely certain. When it comes to manufacturing with agricultural ingredients, it’s very difficult to know anything definitive about the state of their contamination as the contamination is typically in spots rather than completely saturating the product. This means that you need to understand the risk potential contamination presents and find ways to mitigate it although it is almost impossible to remove it completely. While we source our beans very carefully, we know that there is the possibility of contamination in our supply chain, so we test representative samples of beans and husk as we get them (meaning we pull small sample from a variety of areas). In this case, when we considered using husk to infuse flavor into cream, we tested for the most common contaminants to evaluate the risk and ensure that the husk panna cotta on our menu would be both safe and delicious. In comes Anresco labs, a local and experienced food lab that can test for almost everything.

I’ve included the 3 sets of test results that we did on a representative sample of the husk we use for the panna cotta:

If you are looking to use husk, it’s worth understanding what to test for and why. The tests above illustrate our current approach and show the results on the husk that we use to give our panna cotta its flavor. Aflatoxin (B1, B2, G1, G2) are mycotoxins and the results were negative, as were the results for microbiological contamination. SPC (or Standard Plate Count) looks high but doesn’t imply any actual health risks. A high SPC is simply indicative of microbiological activity, which is very common when it comes to cocoa beans—after all, the first step in cocoa processing is fermentation! SPC is also a valuable indicator for understanding sanitary conditions of the environment in which the beans were produced. The only positive test results on the husk were for heavy metals. We analyzed these results based on the worst case scenario of everything present in the husk transferring directly and completely to the panna cotta. Since we aren’t feeding actual husk to anyone, this is almost certainly not going to happen; however, we wanted to ensure that even if all of the heavy metals were transferred, the panna cotta would be safe to consume. Below is a chart of the potential heavy metal content per serving of panna cotta. We arrived at these numbers by accounting for how much husk is used in the recipe and how many servings the recipe yields (we used 200g of husk in the recipe and it produces 40 servings). We also checked how the results line up with Prop 65, a California law which outlines daily limits for consumption of heavy metals and is the strictest regulation that limits heavy metal exposure that we know of). Again, this analysis was done as if we didn’t strain out the husk and/or if the metals completely infused into the panna cotta, which they almost certainly didn’t, have I clarified that too much?

Husk Panna Cotta

200 g of cacao husk / batch
40 panna cotta / batch
5 g of cacao husk / panna cotta (it’s infused and removed however; but in worst case scenario assume it was eaten)

Heavy Metal	Test Result	Potential Panna Cotta Content (PPCC)	Prop 65 Daily Limit	% of Daily Limit (According to Prop 65)
Antimony	<0.05 ppm
Arsenic	0.08 ppm	0.4 μg / serving	10 μg	4%
Bismut	<0.05 ppm
Cadmium	0.3 ppm	1.5 μg / serving	4.1 μg	37%
Chromium	1 ppm	5 μg / serving	8.2 μg	61%
Lead	0.3 ppm	1.5 μg / serving	15 μg	10%
Mercury	<0.05 ppm
Molybdenum	0.2 ppm
Silver	<0.05 ppm
Tin	<2 ppm

As you can see, considering the strictest guidelines, the panna cotta infused with husk should be safe to consume. Even so, this is a specific situation where we are using husk once we have done the due diligence to understand the risk associated with this specific origin and this specific harvest.

Hopefully this explanation was helpful. Overall we don’t encourage people to blindly use or eat husk. It could be dangerous (think of it akin to eating raw chicken). That being said, the risk associated with using husk is quantifiable and assessable. If you are thinking of using husk, it’s important to do the homework, get some testing done, and send us your results so we have more data to analyze!

Le Grande Experiment: Part 3

October 8, 2015 by Greg

This is the third in a series of posts about Le Grande Experiment (which translates into no language except the one we’ve made up), a somewhat recent adventure wherein we sent teams to Denver and Italy on a vital mission: to hunt down and test the best equipment for scaling up our process. Our current setup works well for our factory space on Valencia Street, but as we grow into our new factory space on Alabama Street, we believe there are better options out there for improving the quality of our chocolate and expanding our capacity to experiment. While we could do the work on the phone, we find the best results come from hitting the road and getting our hands dirty.

The exciting conclusion to our experiment is here! If you haven’t read about Le Grande Experiment, it is worth reading up on Part 1 and Part 2 before reading on as I’ll be making reference to some of groundwork laid in those posts. We now rejoin our intrepid research team in San Francisco.

Now that we had lots of data and tests and samples and, well, chocolate, we needed to figure out what we liked! There were two main considerations (in order of importance to us):

Flavor
Texture (and the closely related viscosity)

Why we care about flavor and texture should be relatively obvious. As we only make two-ingredient chocolate, viscosity is a constant challenge. Without added lecithin or fat (cocoa butter), we can’t control the viscosity to make the chocolate more workable the way many other makers can, so we need to set ourselves up for success! Our overall goal is to make more chocolate with less labor, and to make chocolate which tastes better, has a better mouthfeel, and is easier for us to handle. How hard could it be?

Flavor

Because flavor is our major driver, the first order of business was to understand the impact of the equipment on flavor. Typically, we use blind taste tests to determine these things, but doing a blind taste test of our standard chocolate against chocolate we made with alternate equipment made me nervous. Even though the beans were all roasted the same way, there were a number of variables that were difficult to control and I worried we wouldn’t be able to make a fair comparison. It turns out I sometimes (*cough* often) overthink things, and luckily fate stepped in. It was January, and we had made it back to San Francisco in time for the semi-annual FCIA meeting (which always takes place in San Francisco in January), which gave us a phenomenal but transient opportunity to talk to a number of other chocolate makers about our results as well as get some chocolate folks tasting chocolate! So, we threw caution to the wind and did a blind tasting of the three methods.

The test compared our own standard chocolate against two others: the chocolate we’d made with a ball mill and rotary conche (the “Packint Method”), and another we’d made with a roll mill and longitudinal conche (the “Steve Method”). We had our standard internal set of people taste the chocolate as well as a number of guests and visitors. This was anything but a scientifically sound study: everyone was trained differently, various chocolate makers look for different things in chocolate, and many people tried the sample late at night after much merriment had been had. That being said, what we wanted to understand is what people actually liked, or more to the point, what did they love? Our customer base is wide and varied (our chocolate is often eaten after much merriment) so while I don’t feel this tasting had the level of rigor we usually attempt to achieve, I think it gave us interesting information. In the results below you can see what we look for when trying to understand preference in samples. The samples are scored on a scale of +2 to -2, +2 being the best thing you’ve ever tried and -2 being something that might make you a little angry at the person who gave it to you. We look for samples that have large number of scores above 1 and minimal scores below 0. Our goal is to make chocolate people love, not chocolate that is inoffensive. It near impossible to make an intensely flavored chocolate that everyone will love, as some people just won’t like that particular flavor, so a few negative scores isn’t a bad thing. These are the results from all of the tasting:

	Standard Dandelion	Steve Method	Packint Method
Number of scores greater than 1	4	4	5
Average of positive scores	0.98	0.93	0.81
Number of scores less than 0	7	5	4
Overall average	0.27	0.43	0.45
Median	0.625	0.875	0.75
Standard Deviation	1.11	1.09	0.90
Favorite Count	4	6	7

The first thing you’re likely to see is that there was no clear winner. Standard Dandelion had the highest number of negative scores but also the highest average of positive scores. The Packint Method had the most fans but the Steve Method had the highest median score. On the qualitative side, people felt like the result from the Packint method was more chocolatey and the Steve method retained more fruity and acid flavors. The conclusion we could draw is that in a blind taste test, the method we have spent years perfecting was neither significantly better nor significantly worse than two other methods that we were just trying out for the first time. Both of these methods can be done at a larger scale with less labor, and that was very promising because it meant with time and practice it seems likely we will be able to “make more chocolate that tastes better, with less labor.”

Texture

The next question was one of texture and viscosity. These two attributes are closely related and typically depend on:

Fat content
Fat type(s)
Moisture content
Particle shape
Particle size distribution

Since we used the same beans for each test, we felt confident that the fat content and type(s) was pretty similar between the samples. This meant that any differences in texture and viscosity are likely due to moisture, particle shape, or particle size distribution. Before diving in further, it’s probably worth outlining why these factors can influence what I’ll call “texturosity.” As Cynthia noted in her post on Le Grande Experiment 2, chocolate is technically a solid in liquid colloid (a.k.a. a “sol”). In our case, the liquid is the fat released from the beans during the refining process, and the solids are what’s left of the cocoa once the fat is released (including the sugar we add).

The ratio of particles to fat will influence both the texture of the chocolate as well as the viscosity. In terms of moisture content, adding moisture—a dissimilar liquid—to a combination of fat and particles will break the homogenous mixture and the sol will start to thicken. This makes it harder for us to work with, and so we try to keep moisture to a minimum.

As for how particle shape influences viscosity, imagine a vat full of identical balls, all of which can move over each other easily. Then imagine a vat full of irregular spiked balls. Irregular particle sizes make the chocolate more viscous because, like the spiked balls, they cannot move amongst and around each other easily. Less viscous chocolate is much easier to work with, so we want to optimize for machines that will make the most particles the same, rounded shaped.

The last factor we’re considering is something called “particle size distribution,” by which we mean the quantity of each sized particle in a given sample. To illustrate this, imagine a vat full of identical balls; they move easily! Then imagine a vat of balls of various sizes, wherein the smaller ones can fit in the spaces between the larger ones, creating a relatively static, solid vat. To reduce viscosity, our goal is to have all of the particles as similarly sized as possible.

While the machines we use can’t really impact fat content or type in the beans, they can impact moisture content, particle shape, and size distribution. Once we had samples from our current process as well as samples from a ball mill, from a ball mill / rotary conche, from a roll mill, and from a roll mill / longitudinal conche, we looked at each of them under a microscope and found the results are below.

Cocoatown
Cocoatown – notice the relatively wide particle distribution	Cocoatown – The particles tend to be a bit rough around the edges
Ball Mill (without conching)
Ball Mill – notice the 2 distinct sets of particle sizes	Ball Mill Particle View – very consistently sized particles but quite rough
Ball Mill / Rotary Conche
Ball Mill / Rotary Conche – notice the narrower distribution once the particles have been conched	Ball Mill / Rotary Conche Particle View – wider distribution but rounder particles
Roll Mill (without conching)
Roll Mill: narrower distribution of particles but two distinct sets, one smaller, one larger.	Roll Mill Particle View – bigger and rougher particles
Roll Mill / Longitudinal Conche
Roll Mill / Longitudinal Conche – after conching, the particle distribution is significantly narrower!	Roll Mill / Longitudinal Conche Particle View – smaller and rounder particles (as well as a bit of cross contamination)

The main thing you’ll notice is that there are two clusters of particle size in the post-refining but pre-conching phase. As it turns out, conching the chocolate resulted in a tighter particle distribution. The conche also reduced particle size overall through the shearing and rounding action of the conche. The sample from the Cocoatown (that we use in the factory now) didn’t have the double cluster and had a wider particle size distribution.

Decisions

Overall we learned a lot through these experiments. Our results are admittedly a bit fuzzy, and we could put more rigor into the experiments, but our goal was to understand which equipment we should use and we feel like we accomplished this goal. The decisions we made are as follows:

Pre-refining
- We LOVED the Packint 2 roll pre-refiner. It produced a shelf stable pre-refined material without adding much heat. This means we can control flavor more effectively.
Refining
- Use a Packint Ball Mill for refining the more chocolatey beans
- Use a five roll mill for refining all the other beans. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to purchase a small five roll mill, so we bought a used Carle & Montanari 980MM mill from Base Coop.
Conching
- Use a Packint Rotary Conche for chocolatey products
- Use a longitudinal conche for other products. Sadly longitudinal conches are not easy to come by but it was Steve DeVries to the rescue. We purchased a used longitudinal conche from Steve, and our Magic Man of Machines, Snooky, is working on reconditioning it now.

Okay! We now have beans, we have equipment to roast, crack, winnow, refine, and conch. Next stop… TEMPERING!

A Future WITH Chocolate!

December 16, 2014 by Greg

A few weeks ago, a number of articles came out in various publications (such as the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the Atlantic) talking about a potential cacao shortage. Even once the International Cocoa Organization and Barry Callebaut released statements saying that this concern was overblown (and there really wasn’t anything to worry about) I still thought it would be interesting to explore the state of cacao, and answer a few good questions that these stories bring to mind.

To begin, all cacao is not equal. Most of the world’s cacao is divided into the categories of bulk cacao and fine flavor cacao. Bulk cacao is a commodity, this means that it is typically considered interchangeable and is generally used for its cocoa butter and bulk mass, not for the flavors it provides. Fine flavor cacao is sought out for its specific, unique flavor which means it is anything but interchangeable. My understanding is that industrial chocolate makers use a combination of bulk and fine flavor cacao to make their products (although I’ve never made chocolate on an industrial scale so its second-hand knowledge). Craft chocolate makers, on the other hand, use only fine flavor cacao.

In Punta Gorda, Belize, Maya Mountain Cacao is working to connect farmers of fine flavor cacao with specialty chocolate makers like us. Samuel Tzui, above, carefully monitors the fermentation process.

All of the articles about a shortage were, albeit not explicitly, talking about bulk cacao. So let’s dive into that. While there has been talk of a potentially large deficit of bulk cacao, the best way to understand the data is via the International Cocoa Organization. They monitor both production and “grindings” (which is basically shorthand for describing the amount of cacao used rather than stored). The ICCO produces an annual report that shows what’s been happening over the course of the year, and it’s available free of charge! If you are interested in understanding the current cacao supply and demand, this is a great resource. As for deficit and surplus, well, over the last 10 years there have been 5 years of deficit and 5 years of surplus. While demand for chocolate has been growing, so has the supply, at approximately the same rate. When someone refers to a shortage of cacao they mean the demand will outstrip the supply, fortunately the numbers don’t show we need to be concerned about that for at least the next few years.

A few of the articles also mentioned Genetically Modified (GMO) cacao. To our knowledge, there isn’t currently any GMO cacao in large scale production. That doesn’t mean someone somewhere isn’t splicing some cacao genes in a lab, but so far we haven’t heard anything about it. That being said, there is a lot of hybridization going on in the cacao world. Research stations all over the world are combining varietals to select for the most desired characteristics. The interesting part is that it all depends on your goal; some people want flavor, some want volume, and some want disease resistance. The frequently-mentioned CCN51 is a result of cross-breeding, and as many of these articles have mentioned, it does a great job of producing large quantity of beans although they are pretty unpalatable. This doesn’t imply that cross-breeding always results in a bad flavor, there are some really tasty varietals made in nurseries!

We don’t buy bulk cacao because it won’t provide the flavor we need to make 2 ingredient chocolate, this means the price we pay is not based on the commodity price. When we purchase cacao, we pay a price based on its value, which depends on the quality of flavor to the work the organization producing the cacao is doing. So, as producers improve their product, they are able to get better prices. The prices we’ve paid vary from $4.40/kg to $7.60/kg.

Now to the heart of the matter, bulk pricing! In contrast to fine flavor cacao, commodity prices tend to rely on supply and demand. The larger the supply in comparison to the demand, the lower the price, and vice versa. Because cacao takes between 3-5 years to become productive this does mean that there is some lag between market prices and production, but looking at the world price over the last 40 years, you can see that there has certainly been a periodicity to it. The implication is that if there ever was a huge deficit of cacao, the price would increase and then people would start to produce more and the cycle would go on, there doesn’t seem to be any data showing this cycle will not continue, or that it would ever result in a lasting shortage.

As long as we are talking about pricing, it might be worth noting that 40 years ago the world price for cacao floated around $1500/metric ton. The price is currently around $2800/metric ton (see above graph for reference). While there has been a lot of fluctuation in between, that $1500 US Dollars in 1974 is worth about $7,224.13 today. (based on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator) In other words, the price of cacao has not been keeping up with inflation (at least over the relatively arbitrary time frame chosen). This is a big part of why working with cacao producers directly is sustainable, ensuring that chocolate makers can get a higher quality product and the cacao producers can get a better price for their products. It’s a win-win, and good protection for everyone against the market’s volatility.

I’m glad these articles brought up some useful topics to discuss, cacao has a long history and we are still new to the industry, but digging into the data more deeply is always an exciting way of turning up more information about the state of things. As always, we are happy to answer any questions you might have for which we have an answer!

Greg D’Alesandre
Chocolate Sourcerer, Dandelion Chocolate

Join us for The Chocolate Maker Unconference!

July 9, 2014 by Greg

I love chocolate, and I have for as long as I can remember. But, when I became a chocolate sourcerer, I learned something surprising. While I enjoy making a product I love, what I really enjoy most is meeting other chocolate makers. There is nothing better than engaging with others who share your passion. This is why I’m excited to be involved in the upcoming Chocolate Maker Unconference in Seattle on October 2-3, 2014 (happening prior to the annual Northwest Chocolate Festival).

As chocolate makers we spend most of our time running our businesses and, well, making chocolate! This doesn’t leave much time to share thoughts, ideas, and tips on what we’ve learned. But, in order for the industry to thrive, we’re best off learning and growing together. This Unconference is meant to afford us the time to make that happen. From the event description:

The 2014 Chocolate Makers UnConference provides space and time for professional Chocolate Makers to engage with others in their industry to talk about the topics that are important and relevant to them. The conference is 2 days to allow time for each attendee to engage and work through multiple topics. The conference does not feature talks or lectures but rather an “open space” format that focuses on inclusive engagement with round-table style sessions and open dialogue to accomplish what the group determines to be their goals. Topics may range from: the best way for new chocolate makers to get small quantities of quality beans; working through a design for a new winnower; putting together an agreement for more effective direct trade; designing a tasting structure that fits the craft chocolate tasting goals.

If you have any questions for me about this, feel free to contact me at beans@dandelionchocolate.com. We wanted to make it free but we needed somewhere to meet so the fee of $100 is designed to cover the cost of the space. I encourage anyone in the chocolate making industry (makers, growers, equipment producers, etc) or even those getting started in the chocolate making industry, to join us. We’d love to meet you!

Dandelions in Belize, want to join us?

July 23, 2013 by Greg

Two months ago I returned from a trip to Belize. Cynthia and I spent a week staying at Cotton Tree Lodge and working with Maya Mountain Cacao in order to learn more about their approach to buying, fermenting, drying, and shipping cacao. While there are some consistent aspects to these processes, the details make all the difference between mediocre and incredible cacao. Genetics and terroir are important factors but the final processing is truly an art form.

We enjoyed our time there immensely and decided the best way for others to learn more about the agricultural side of cacao growth, harvesting, and processing is to spend some time on the farm as well. We currently teach Chocolate 101 (Introduction to Chocolate Industry Lecture & Taste Lab) and Chocolate 201 (Small Batch Chocolate Making Lab), so we’ve now added Chocolate 301 (Cacao Sourcing Field Trip). On November 2-9, 2013 I’ll be leading a trip back to Southern Belize with a combination of chocolate makers, chocolate lovers and hopefully an agriculture enthusiast or two. The goal of this trip is to give you a thorough understanding of how cacao is grown (specifically in Belize), an overview with some practical experience in fermentation and drying, and an appreciation for the history of cacao in Belize. Oh, and to enjoy a really beautiful part of the world!

The current agenda (which is subject to change) will involve:
– Visiting cacao farms, trying various products and learning about how cacao is grown in Belize
– Visiting Maya Mountain Cacao to learn more about their approach to group fermentation and drying
– Visiting at least 2 chocolate makers, 1 using classic mayan chocolate making techniques and at least 1 using more modern techniques
– Talks on cacao fermentation and sourcing
– Eating a lot of cacao and cacao related products!

In addition to the scheduled activities there will be plenty of opportunities to explore Belize (for instance fishing, swimming, horseback riding or cliff-jumping) or just sit around in a hammock and listen to the jungle.

I’m really excited to bring a group down to share the joy of Belize and cacao with others who’ll enjoy it as much as I do! If you’d like more information or pricing (prices start around $1300 excluding flights), please contact us at trips@dandelionchocolate.com and we’ll happily discuss it in more detail with you!

Greg D’Alesandre
Chocolate Sourcerer, Dandelion Chocolate