#Baianí 57% dark milk

[thechocolategarage]

Sirene's Fiji and Guatemala darks, and Baianí and Momotombo dark milks

July 6, 2018

Open tomorrow (Saturday) from 9am until 1pm.

Aloha and Happy Friday! Keeping it very short this week, cutting to the chase with what we are featuring tomorrow: Sirene Guatemala 73% Sirene Fiji 73% Baianí 57% dark milk Momotombo dark milk with nibs We do have some Patric and SOMA left from our last order, so tomorrow is a good time to snap that up. Plenty of Momotombo, and things don't seem to be getting any better in Nicaragua, at least in this short term. Please consider getting some Momotombo for dinner party gifts, for sharing with co-workers and generally spreading the word about bean to bar in country of bean origin. Charm School is back, Dick Taylor is also in stock, Original Beans and more... Come and see what we have, and taste the bars we are featuring tomorrow. We hope to see you tomorrow! Sunita

[thechocolategarage]

All the way from Uganda... update on Garage!

June 29, 2018

Currently open Saturdays only from 9 am - 1pm. Hoping we can save The Chocolate Garage for the cost of a couple lattes a month... or about the monthly cost of an Amazon Prime membership!

Happy Friday everyone! First, thank you to all those who have signed up to donate monthly to The Chocolate Garage, to those who can contribute $5 a month, or those who opted $10, $20 or $50, and to our wonderful supporter of local small business who decided to change their donation from $20 to $200, I am grateful and moved to see so many of you (78 to be exact) put in your dollar vote for supporting local business and local community building. We are closer to our goal, being at just under $1400/month currently. For those of you who missed last week's newsletter with more details on why we are offering this and what we need the money for, you can read last week's newsletter here. You will see the next time you come to The Chocolate Garage that we have started adding the names of our supporting patrons, onto The Chocolate Garage wall. You are welcome to stay anonymous, or to add your name to the wall of supporters (and take a selfie next to your name!). We also have a new page that lists our current patrons on our website, and has a direct link for folks to become patronsas well. (Note: we do reach out to all donors and get explicit permission to write your name on our wall and website, before adding you, this also means a small delay after you donate, before you will find your name listed, feel free to add in the notes that you are ok with your name, or some version of your name, being added.) If we can hit our goal, we will stay open. And if we exceed our goal, we can start thinking about how we can use the extra funds to have more events, or bring in more makers, or use the funds in other ways to better serve our community: holiday hours, extra pick up times during the week, reduced shipping costs? Latitude Trade Company: Straight from Uganda! A couple of months ago, Jeff Steinberg reached out to come and visit The Chocolate Garage, all I knew was that he was working with cacao farmers in Uganda, trying to improve the post harvest process, so that farmers in Uganda could also partake in the craft chocolate market. If you as a cacao farmer are able to get the quality of your cacao up to meet the craft chocolate requirements, what this means for a farmer is doubling or tripling the price your cacao fetches. So it is a powerful motivator and great tool for cacao farmers to really improve their situations. When Jeff and I met, my feeling was that he was one of those really serious ones, dedicated to creating change, having worked in many different countries, usually with a focus on how folks can empower themselves. He started up a business in Uganda (Latitude Trade Company) and started working on getting high quality cacao out of Uganda, to buyers who will pay a premium. Before he knew it, he started playing around with making chocolate, and had brought a sample to share. As I have said before, the vast majority of new bars I taste have significant flaws, either texture, or often times problems with the cacao itself. Jeff had made a 70% two ingredient bar (cacao and sugar) and it was both a lovely texture and also had deep chocolatey fudgey notes, with some accents of fruit. I was blown away, and told him that even though we were planning to close very soon (I thought back then right after selling all the Momotombo, how quickly things change!) I would LOVE to bring in these bars. The reason I started The Chocolate Garage and was moved to build something that could contribute to changing the traditional, ugly ways in commodity cacao trade. Mott Green (Grenada Chocolate Company) was my first and deepest inspiration, of someone who broke the rules, refused to accept the status quo and built a company and a movement out of sheer stubbornness, willpower and a beautiful vision. Years after starting The Chocolate Garage, when I finally met him and told him about this idea that I called "Happy Chocolate", he laughed and told me that I had to come visit their factory, that it was the happiest chocolate factory around. I think that one of the most powerful models for changing the industry is to make finished chocolate in the countries that produce the cacao. Ideally I think it would be great to see local companies in Uganda, Cote d'Ivoire, Guatemala and Peru all making chocolate for the local market, but I think there is also room for making bars for export too... So, I am extra excited that Jeff has started making chocolate too, his packaging is elegant while humble, he is using the same company name he uses for his trade business, and he is just getting started, but I am delighted to be able to bring this chocolate to The Chocolate Garage! Please come by tomorrow to taste, or if you want to get this bar and are far away, feel free to order it online. I hope that our "Save The Chocolate Garage" efforts are fruitful, and we can stay open to bring more bars like this to you, and bring small makers doing really good work into the limelight. Jeff added a little note on the bar wrapper in his efforts to support our "Save The Chocolate Garage" efforts, you can check it out tomorrow in person. :) Saturday Tasting Menu Latitude Trade Company 70% Semuliki Forest 2017 Harvest Grenada Chocolate Company 60% Baianí 70% with Orange Zest Baianí 57% dark milk Yes! We will be tasting four bars all made in their respective countries using their own countries cacao. Baianí goes one step further in that they also grow, harvest, ferment and dry their own cacao before then turning it into chocolate. I am away at a meditation retreat this whole week, (I wrote most of this before going offline!), so I won't see you tomorrow, but Katie and Claire will be there to answer any questions and make sure you walk away with all the best Happy Chocolate bars that you want. Warm, chocolatey wishes! Sunita

Above L to R, Juliana of Baianí, Arcelia of Mission Chocolate, and Tuta in Vale Potumuju. This is their phenomenal drying room, right next to their fermentary. What a gorgeous set up!

Here is the beginning of the list of patrons being added to the wall at The Chocolate Garage. Thank you again to all those who have become patrons!