Birth of Craft Chocolate
I'm back! Finally. There was a wedding in the middle of the silence. But here we are in a new world, geared and greased up.
If you haven't gathered from my previous posts, the chocolate industry experienced a monumental shift in the early mid-2000s, and a smaller scale industry was born through innovation of machinery and sheer drive to change the definition of chocolate away from a food product synonymous with a brand title (Cadburys, Hersheys, Mars, etc) and re-build the food starting at the roots. Higher quality genetics with deep attention to detail and the growing level became attractive as the new passionate makers sought to build symphonic flavor in their chocolate to represent the terroir of the region and highlight the production process.
The world of craft chocolate is an artisan movement centralized on a back-to-the-basics approach to chocolate making. Chocolate made by craft chocolatiers is simple, usually including just cocoa liquor and sugar. Coffee went through a similar renaissance starting in the late 1980s and 90s focused on ethical and quality concerns. Fair Trade (FT) was established as an alternative trading method attempting to correct social problems created by conventional international trade and markets. Over the last 30 years, research has been conducted on whether Fair Trade Coffee is meeting its goals, and the results are inconclusive. It is unclear if FT has helped, but FT also has not been proven to hurt. Within the craft chocolate movement, many opted for Direct Trade programs over Fair Trade. Direct Trade is a highly variable system devised by each company to focus on their particular concerns, but almost always these programs include long-term partnerships with their farms, quality control and paying well over the FT minimum price. Whether Direct Trade is the answer to the failings of Fair Trade remains to be seen over time, but farms engaged in Direct Trade are more financially stable, because they yield consistently higher quality crops over time.
Craft chocolate began to blossom as a movement in the United States in 2006. Now with over 75 small craft chocolate makers and counting1 in the US alone, the movement is in full swing. Every region of the US boasts their own small, local, and proud group of craft chocolatiers, each with their own spin on the movement through different flavor combinations and single-origin2 selections. The movement was founded around ethical concerns of paying a fair wage to the producing farmers, and quality concerns like finding, using, and sustaining only the highest quality cocoa in their chocolate. Coffee went through a similar transition starting in the late 1980s and 90s focused on similar ethical and quality concerns. To achieve their ethical and quality goals, coffee manufacturers developed alternative trading methods focused on paying a fair wage to farmers and incentivizing better quality coffee through higher wages.
This past September, I got in an inside look at the development of the craft chocolate industry by judging the chocolate category in the Good Food Awards (GFA). While the ingenuity and creativity with which people are approaching cacao is quite mind-boggling, we are in dire need of greater organization throughout the category. For instance, I think all chocolate at the same strength or cocoa percentage should only be judged against bars with the same percentage. This evens the playing field, and then inclusions (or cars with added flavors like cinnamon, lavender, etc) should have their own category altogether. In the last year, I have also been developing my brand Sitara Cacao with a keen focus on how to best create the most delicious chocolate experience true to the cacao without muddling the cacao by adding emulsifiers or flavor enhancers such as vanilla. The key, I have discovered, is in using the highest quality cacao bean, roasting the bean lightly and then conching it for 24 hours to let the volatiles out before adding sugar.
Dandelion Chocolate, a leader in the Craft Chocolate world and continual winner of GFA year after year, put out a video on how to make chocolate on your own in 2015- take a look here! A central idea to the birth of the new chocolate movement is to get your hands on the beans and understand the source of cocoa better. I am always happy to host people in a hands-on learning chocolate production experience as part of my Sitara Cacao line-up, and I even have bars for sale (Finally!).