#Arete Fine Chocolate Lam Dong 73%

[thechocolategarage]

From Vietnam & Eastern Congo to Browned Butter

August 4, 2017

Happy Friday! Guess what we are tasting tomorrow? You'll get to travel from Vietnam, through Madagascar all the way to Eastern Congo, to end in a cast iron skillet with butter browning... All while you are happily ensconced in our cozy, blue velvet corner, feet firmly grounded on our happy chocolate floor, imaged above. Mmm. No better way to start your Saturday! Which reminds me, if you want to do something helpful for The Chocolate Garage, I am not a partaker in Yelp, on either end, business side or consumer, but we would love it if you are a regular and love what we do, if you could go find our page on Yelp and write an honest review, what you love, what we could improve on, why you come visit us. We recently got a not so great review, so we would love for you to help populate our review page with additional experiences and describe your relationship with The Chocolate Garage! Thank you. Now, I decided to spend most of today's newsletter going into some depth about each bar. I have been focussed quite a bit on additional activities around Happy Chocolate, that make it possible for us to keep doing what we do Wednesdays and Saturdays at The Chocolate Garage, and I feel a consequence has been more talk and excitement around our trips, and perhaps less focus on each bar we are holding up, tasting and celebrating. So, I by no means I am less excited about our trips, they are a great way to go deeper into understanding the infinitely complex set of steps that have to happen to result in Happy Chocolate, and they are also our chance to not only share the trips with those ON the trip, but also let folks who can't come, have a peak into some of the challenges in the supply chain, and learn about inspiring projects that are starting to build alternate models that are more thoughtful ways of doing business. Saturday Tasting Menu Arete Fine Chocolate Lam Dong 73% Patric Madagascar 67% Original Beans Femmes de Virunga 55% Patric Chocolate Browned Butter Bar Arete Fine Chocolate LAM DONG 73% For the new folks to our happy chocolate world, let's dig deeper into this bar. And the makers. David and Leslie Senk are high school sweethearts who found each other once again later in life and are so sweetly in love with each other and with small batch chocolate making. Leslie left her job in the dental world, and has been full time into chocolate making for at least a few years, and David has held on to this tech day job, joining Leslie nights and weekends to live the chocolate life. They have the long game in mind, with plans to bring their company to a certain level, learning more and more, before eventually moving full, full time into chocolate. David and Leslie have been coming in to The Chocolate Garage since soon after we opened in 2010. I remember they once played with germinating some seeds and they brought a half dozen cacao seedlings to give away to customers to grow in their hopefully hot an humid bathrooms... they brought in chocolate tests that were back then all vegan, experimenting with how to use cocoa butter to add various flavors, I remember finding the early tastes not delicious. What I think worked really well with this company, is that David and Leslie were super open to feedback, and kept bringing in more and more samples, they sent their samples off to other well versed chocolate industry folks, sometimes including a bar they thought was bad, to test whether their ideas lined up with other "more experienced" tasters. For years they made test batches, got feedback from many people, both citizen tasters as well as folks deeply steeped in the industry. Then they started building out a factory, they made batch after batch, until we were super excited about their Brasil 75% and their Brasil 70%. They launched these bars at The Chocolate Garage, and immediately our customers fell in love, and almost always, loved one or the other bar better. These were 2 ingredient bars, using an origin that had not been very common at that time, and the love affair with Areté was real. As they keep experimenting with various origins, making tiny batches, learning how to work with so many different origins, tweaking roasts, tweaking conching, they have come to their style. What fascinates me is that their attitude about learning, testing, improving is still there. I sense they still feel that they are in school. Learning, experimenting, sharing and finding their own point of view, all while building new machines to improve their process. I am so excited for their next big steps, and I am honored to get to work with them so closely. Lam Dong, from Vietnam, let's talk about that. This is the third or fourth bar using cacao from Vietnam. Most of you who have been coming to The Chocolate Garage for some time, probably first tasted this origin when we had brought in Marou Faiseurs de Chocolat. Marou really brought Vietnam to our attention, and showcased the varied flavor profiles from various farms located in different parts of Vietnam. After launching their beautifully designed bars with award winning packaging, they also were committed to making sure cacao farmers who produced high quality cacao also had access to a market that was paying top dollar for cacao. We started to see smaller craft chocolate makers in the US and Canada and Europe and ok, the world (craft chocolate is definitely an international phenomenon now), making bars from these beans. We loved Areté's version of Tien Giang, and Ben Tre, and now, tomorrow we are featuring the Lam Dong. We also carry their Lam Dong 100%, which I think may be the first 100% Vietnam bar. Tomorrow we will taste their 73% version, which has 12% added cocoa butter that was pressed in house from the same beans. So, what does that mean? It means most of the time, when craft chocolate makers do add cocoa butter--which many do not because they stick to two ingredient bars-- they add cocoa butter (natural or deodorized) that was pressed from other beans, usually without much traceability. What Areté is doing is pressing those same beans they are using for the bar (Lam Dong) and adding 12% same origin butter to total a 73% bar. The first maker I know of to do this as a matter of principle, was Shawn Askinosie, who usually added about 2-3% butter to his bars, but always same origin. The reason more makers don't do this, is because it is a huge pain. :) It is hard, hard work, your machine breaks down, you need to work out what to do with the cacao cake left over (remember our bake off with Areté cocoa powder?), your bars end up being more pricey. That was a little interlude, I am realizing I have SO MUCH I WANT TO SAY! So, one more tiny bit of education, if you want to get into what the 73% means, in this case given the 12% cocoa butter, it means that this is what the little picture would look like if you wanted to see the ingredients of this bar: 61% cacao beans in a pile + 12% cocoa butter + 27% cane sugar. Yup. Maybe I should move on to some of the other bars, because at this rate, this newsletter ain't ever going to end. Patric Chocolate Madagascar 67% Mr. Alan. McClure. I remember the first time I talked to him. He was off to Sweden for some reason, they were doing some work around craft chocolate, maybe wanting to showcase his work, don't remember the details, and he is too busy with school and making chocolate for me to call him to ask him that detail... but he called me as he was heading to the airport, to answer questions about my recent shipment, which at that time, I had stored in my home closet, to keep it in a cool, dry, dark place. This was 2009 or early 2010, I had been tasting his bars for some time by then, but was finally bringing these in to sell in my soon to open retail space. I got my first glimpse of his perfectionist nature, with how he shipped and wrapped the bars, to protect what was obviously a deep work of love. The bar we are going to taste tomorrow already existed, but the formulation, the packaging, and even the man behind the bar were all very different. The energy and optimism was strong, the bars were two ingredient, much smaller, and the packaging was a small dark colored cardboard box, with a golden Patric logo, and a deep orange-red alien looking cacao pod on the cover. This man was *way* ahead of his time. I remember tasting these bars with a dear friend who was making amazing confections back then, and we were both blown away by the variety of flavors, even between the different Madagascar bars: the 67% and the 75% were each dramatically different. Alan was sourcing beans from Bertil Åkesson, the man responsible for almost every Malagasy origin bar you on any store shelf (an example of an exception: Madecasse uses cacao from other Malagasy farms) and his original line up was all Madagascar. 10 years later, this cacao still exists and is top notch. We used to say this was a bean you couldn't mess up, but I suppose that would be a whole other post... Alan makes magic with these beans, and has been doing so for years. If you want to do something fun and creative, buy a Patric Habanero tomorrow, break it open and taste it up against his plain 67% and see how the Habanero infused salt drives the citrus notes in totally new directions. It is a fascinating experience, it turns into more lime notes, and the balance of the heat and strong fruit and chocolate notes is perhaps perfection. Even if you don't like super fruity bars, like me. Somehow Alan just brings it all together in such a masterful way. So much to say about Alan, but suffice to say, there is also a connection between Areté and Alan, I have said this before and will say it again, to all budding makers: If I were to get into making chocolate, my first stop (after reading the relevant books on this topic) would be Colombia, Missouri, to consult with Alan on how to make chocolate. Spend the money, it is so worth it. David went to spend a few days with him, and says it saved him so much learning and time. Alan is a man of his word, a man of incredible integrity, has become a dear friend and we have both been deeply involved in each other's evolving business model, always making time to advise one another, share our expertise to the other's benefit (I am not a perfectionist in the same way Alan is, and I hate building spreadsheets ;) and I would not be where I am without Alan's trust, friendship and dry sense of humor. He is not the only one to recognize, but since we are talking about him right now, there it is. Original Beans Femmes de Virunga 55% This is an interesting story. And I suspect we will see more and more of this in the future. Actually, if I were to move into making chocolate, this may well be the model I would use. Our next film (after Hawaii which is imminent!), on Switzerland will showcase this model, and we will meet and visit with the latest maker to start working with this company, effectively outsourcing the chocolate making part, to very competent makers, while focussing on all the other sections of the supply chain. Original Beans works very closely with Max Felchlin, perhaps the Happiest Chocolate maker in Switzerland, and sources the beans and oversees the recipes, producing bars that they then sell internationally. While we were visiting this summer, we saw Vera Hofman, from Original Beans, who was on site that day to work on some product development. Max Felchlin is an amazing company, that both makes their own products that serve confectionery companies internationally, and also do private labelling with various chocolate makers and other brands who want to promote their products (think chocolate Swiss Army knives by Victorinox, or Mövenpick chocolate ice cream). Original Beans has taken on working directly with the bean origins, and marketing their product and educating the customer, and leaving the chocolate making expertise in the hands of the chocolate maker. They are definitely involved in developing how they want their bars to taste, but they let the technical aspects of chocolate making rest in the hands of Max Felchlin. The bar we will taste will be the 55% Stong Dark Milk made with cacao from Virunga Park in Eastern Congo. You can read more about this and other projects on their website, the truth is this is the company I have the least direct relationship with, having met Vera briefly this summer, and having had some virtual interaction with one of their original founders back in 2008 or 2009, I cannot give you as much info as I would like. So far, all the pieces of data I have collected and learned about point in the direction of Happy Chocolate, but my depth of knowledge on this company is more limited than most of the other companies we carry. And, in my experience, digging and going deep is the only way to really know and build a relationship. It takes time and interaction. While I keep doing that, please enjoy this delicious bar, that is working towards positive change in Eastern Congo. Patric Chocolate Browned Butter I won't go into more detail about Patric Chocolate, since I did that above, but: This Bar. I think it exemplifies the process Alan goes through to make a fantastic bar. I tell this story all the time at the Garage, as I lovingly call our teeny, weeny space, that is an old carriage house/garage, Alan did two test batches a week, for three and a half months, before he was feeling this bar was ready. He experimented with the brand of butter he used, how he browned it, which brown sugar he would use, what blend of cacao worked best. I think this is why his bars are always masterfully made, even if they are not your exact taste preference. I have some bars of Patric's that are not my cup of tea, but they are always made to such a quality and thoughtfulness, that leaves most other inclusion bars ashamed. Patric Chocolate does not use an inclusion to cover up flaws, he uses the best mix of beans and other flavors and ingredients to make the best combination of flavors possible. That alone is rather rare in the chocolate industry. Sometimes it makes sense to take some harsh cacao and do a dark milk, arguably that brings out the best in a dark milk. But most of the time what I am tasting and seeing, is inclusions as distractions, attempt to cover up flawed beans or a lack of technical skills. Alan's wide range of inclusion bars is responding to a market that wants new, change, flavors, and fun! He excels at single origin, and also rocks the playful bars! So, enjoy! I hope you have a fantastic tasting tomorrow, I will be deep into working on the films, and preparing the next trip to India... and Nicaragua. Please email us if you would like to learn more about either of these trips, you can also go back to earlier newsletters (past few weeks, on our blog) to see more info on each trip, I must run off to another meeting and cut this newsletter off! :) Happy Friday again, Sunita p.s. for those who are curious, wrote this in under two hours! Hope there are no mega typos! Please forgive!

I can't wait to share Episode 4 of The Chocolate Garage in Switzerland, where we talk more about Choba Choba's team (above) and their inspiring work. 

One of the many beautiful natural scenes in Switzerland, here I am admiring the terraced vineyards above Lac Leman and the majestic mountains rising up across the lake on the French side.