A large part of chocolate making is deciding where and how to source your cacao. Recently, we’ve partnered with Sarah Krupp to source beans from Colombia. The beans come from a village that uprooted their coca plants to grow cacao. The villagers removed the coca crops themselves, hoping to end continued violence that affected their community. Greg’s working closely with Sarah to bring in beans from this village, but there are recent obstacles. Two of the village’s most influential leaders have been threatened by a FARC commander and have been forced to leave the community.

Many of the regions that grow cacao have substantial economic and political turmoil. Sarah wrote this piece on the current political state of Colombia and its effect on the village growing our beans. We thought you would be interested in hearing more about where some of our cacao comes from.

I’m very excited to share a video that Hannah Radcliff put together for us earlier this fall. Hannah lives in St. Louis, but stopped at Four Barrel on a recent trip to San Francisco and discovered our chocolate. She wrote to us asking if she could make a video about our “rich and delicious” chocolate on her next trip, and of course we said “yes!”

She recently posted the video as part of a travelogue by FEAST magazine. Her video turned out beautifully. It does a fantastic job of introducing each step of our process and each member of our production team. Thank you, Hannah!

By now you’ve heard of bean-to-bar chocolate, but have you heard of bar-to-bean? Our friend Ryan at Cat Trick Films made us an awesome and quirky video for our opening. Check out how chocolate bars are (un-)made:

Happy holidays from all of us at Dandelion Chocolate! Thanks for making this an awesome year. We’re humbled to be a part of this amazing community; the support we’ve gotten from our new friends, neighbors, volunteers, fellow chocolate makers, chocolatiers, and chocolate tasters has been overwhelming. We can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store!

We’ll be closed for some much needed rest and will see you all next year. As we’ve sold out of our very last bars, we will reopen the factory the second week in January once we’ve had time to replenish our stock. And look for the cafe soon!

Our production space in the Dogpatch was right above Almanac Beer. I’m so glad we discovered this in time to partner up this winter. They recently brewed a Biere de Chocolat using our cocoa nibs and it’s delicious! It’s available now as a draft, with bottles coming in the new year. I was lucky enough to taste a sample earlier this week and I’m hooked.

Almanac worked with our Ambanja, Madagascar and Rio Caribe, Venezuela nibs to produce this seasonal beer. They took great care to get to know the flavor of our beans and to showcase them in the final product. I can taste the fruity, chocolatey, and rich flavor notes I know and love in our bars. The team at Almanac wrote up an awesome description of the layered flavors:

“Working with the unique flavors of Dandelion’s single-source beans, we created this decadent beer by layering in smoked and dark-roasted malts with citrusy Ivanhoe hops from Clearlake, CA. Finally, we added a blend of hand-roasted cocoa beans sourced from Madagascar and Río Caribe, Venezuela. The Madagascar beans add bright berry-cocoa flavors, while the Río Caribe adds dark chocolate and bourbon notes. A touch of vanilla rounds out the supporting flavors to create an eminently drinkable beer that is a chocolate lover’s beer through and through.”

I’m ready for another taste. For now, you can learn more about Biere de Chocolat here. Enjoy!

It seems like just the other day that we were telling you about our collaboration with 826 Valencia, a non-profit writing center founded in San Francisco that offers, among other things, free tutoring and writing workshops to students ages 6-18.

Now we’re excited to tell you about a new collaboration—this time, with McSweeney’s Publishing. McSweeney’s is an independent publishing house that was founded by author Dave Eggers, who is also the co-founder of 826 Valencia. (You can listen to Dave Eggers talk about 826 Valencia, their mission, and their connection to McSweeney’s in his 2008 TED talk.) Just like 826 Valencia, McSweeney’s is one of our neighbors in the Mission, and when they asked us to contribute to their annual holiday party, we were happy to oblige!

In celebration of new December publications by McSweeney’s, which include Lucky Peach issue 5 (a journal dedicated to food and writing), Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern issue 42 (an award-winning literary journal) and Beck’s Song Reader (Beck’s newest music album), McSweeney’s is hosting a holiday bash on Thursday, December 6 from 7-10 pm, at the Makeout Room in San Francisco.

They’ll have a live reading by author Paul Legault, whose newest collection, The Emily Dickinson Reader, was recently published by McSweeney’s. The reading will be followed by karaoke and dancing. There will be free holiday treats to enjoy, including our chocolate!

McSweeney’s has been kind enough to provide us with a limited number of complimentary tickets to the event, as well as gratis subscriptions to Lucky Peach magazine. We’ll be giving these away at our retail space with the purchase of $40 worth of chocolate starting this Friday, November 30.

Here’s the catch: You’ll get first dibs on your choice of either option (a pair of tickets or a year-long subscription to Lucky Peach) if you (1), include a copy of our 826 bundle in your purchase, or (2), casually mention to us how much you enjoy karaoke.

So whether you’re a McSweeney’s enthusiast, a Lucky Peach reader, or just a chocolate lover looking for a good time, please consider stopping by our space to get some holiday shopping done and receive some McSweeney’s goodies while you’re at it!

You can find a link to the McSweeney’s holiday party here.

In addition to our free ticket giveaway, tickets to the event can be purchased here.

For more information on all things McSweeney’s-related, please click here.

I hope you’re all thinking about turkey and pumpkin pie as this week winds down. But, when the festivities end, we have another reason to celebrate! We’ll be next door with our neighbors at Mission Cheese on the night of November 26th, pairing chocolate, cheese, and wine from Sutton Cellars. You’ll each be able to play and discover your favorite combinations, while we share some of our own picks. It promises to be a delicious night and we hope you’ll join us!

Here’s the event information: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/296794. The Night Cheese tasting will take place on Monday, November 26th from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at Mission Cheese, 736 Valencia Street.

Back in June, Alice and I led a workshop called “Chock-full O’ Chocolate” at our friendly neighborhood pirate supply store, also known as 826 Valencia. Founded ten years ago in San Francisco, 826 Valencia offers a variety of free programs for primary and secondary school students to support their writing skills, foster creativity and inspire confidence through writing and the literary arts.

We met a group of really great, talented students (all between the ages 12-15) who came to learn about chocolate, the chocolate-making process, and to further hone their creative writing skills. By the end of the four-week session, each student had produced numerous short stories, poems, and drawings inspired by chocolate. They personally selected their best pieces, which were published in a chapbook entitled If I Were A Wizard Chocolatier.

We’re thrilled to announce that this chapbook can now be found at our chocolate factory as well as 826 Valencia! To commemorate this super-special collaboration with our neighbors, If I Were A Wizard Chocolatier comes with its own limited-edition chocolate bar, developed especially for 826. It’s called the High Seas bar, complete with sea salt and an intriguing back-story. In honor of the partnership, we’ve made a total of 826 bars.

You can pick up both as a bundle at our space; alternatively, you can purchase the chapbook at 826 Valencia’s Pirate Supply Store, where you’ll also receive a golden ticket that can be redeemed for the accompanying High Seas bar at our location one block away.

María and Lauren, two of the fantastic designers at 826, are responsible for creating the look of the chapbook, as well as the packaging for the High Seas bar. They did an absolutely amazing job, and we can’t wait for you to dive right in and enjoy both!

A portion of the proceeds from If I Were A Wizard Chocolatier and the High Seas bar will go to 826 Valencia, so they can continue to fund free student programming for elementary-, middle- and high-schoolers. We had a great time working with everyone at 826, and especially with our workshop participants: Nathan, Miriam, Cecily, Janelle, Bryan, Troy, Anja, Zora, Anthony, Alexis and Myles.

Now that our factory and retail space on Valencia is open to the public, please feel free to stop by and thumb through the chapbook: maybe it’ll inspire you to pen a paean to chocolate as well!

Please click on the links to learn more about 826 Valencia and 826 National, which coordinates its sister chapters located around the country.

We’ve got a few fun events coming up pretty soon:

First, we will be at the Eat Real Festival this Friday – Sunday at Jack London Square in Oakland. Our booth will be at the Craft Marketplace and we’ll be doing a chocolate-making overview on Saturday. Lots of our food vendor friends will be there too. Check it out here.

And the weekend after (September 29th and 30th), Cam, Alice, and Lisa will be up in Seattle for Northwest Chocolate Festival. They’ll also be visiting our friends at Chocolopolis for a Meet the Maker tasting on Friday 9/28 from 2:30 – 4:30.

Here’s a video from last year’s festival, see if you can catch a quick glimpse of Cam: