Our CHOCOLATE

SOURCING & PROCESS

  • A group of people, including a man in the foreground wearing a black hat and white polo shirt, gathered around drying trays filled with cacao beans. The man appears to be explaining or demonstrating something, gesturing with his hands over the beans.

    ROOTED IN HERITAGE

    Our cacao comes from South America, honoring our founder’s Colombian roots and our commitment to ethical chocolate-making. We partner with trusted suppliers who ensure quality and fair wages for farmers.

  • **Alt Text:** A ripe, orange-brown cacao pod resting on a pile of dried cacao beans, displayed on a rustic wooden surface. The pod has a ridged texture, and the beans are dark brown with a slightly rough appearance.

    COLOMBIAN CACAO

    We source our Colombian beans from the Chigorodó region through Cacaitos, a supplier dedicated to direct trade practices. These organically grown beans are the foundation of most of our bars, bringing rich, complex flavors to every bite.

  • Cocoa beans spread out on large drying racks with green mesh bottoms, set outdoors under the sun. The drying racks are arranged in rows, partially shaded by a metal-framed canopy, with lush green vegetation and distant hills in the background, bathed

    PERUVIAN CACAO

    Our Peruvian cacao, sourced through Cacao Life, highlights the incredible variety of South American chocolate. Aaron personally met with farmers and co-op owners in Cusco, capturing the spirit of small-batch craftsmanship in every bar.

  • SWEETENED WITH CARE

    We use organic cane sugar from Brazil, sourced from Global Organics. This ensures that every bar is made with ingredients that are as respectful to the planet as they are to your taste buds.

What does ‘Bean to Bar’ mean?

"Bean to Bar" is a standard term in the chocolate world, meaning we’re part of the entire process starting with raw cacao beans from our trusted suppliers that we roast, refine, and mold into rich, handcrafted chocolate, right here in-house. Scroll down for a deep dive into our process.

  • An icon that stylistically represents three cocoa pods hanging from of tree branch with leaves

    1. Cocoa Tree and Pods

    An evergreen tree that grows about 20 degrees north and south of the equator. This tree produces cocoa pods. These pods are what eventually become chocolate.

  • An icon made with bold line art that shows two fermentation boxes with fermenting cocoa beans under banana leaves

    2. Fermentation Boxes

    If you open a cacao pod, you’ll find a slimy mucus covering little cocoa beans. The fruit and beans are scooped out and placed into the fermentation boxes made from wood. The beans are then covered with banana leaves, trapping all the local bacteria in the air in the box. This allows fermentation to occur, the first step in flavor development!

  • A lineart graphic that depicts cocoa beans raked out on to large drying beds

    3. Drying

    After 5 – 7 days of fermentation, the beans will be raked out onto large drying beds so the excess fruit will evaporate.

  • 4. Bags

    Beans are placed into large burlap sacks so they can safely make the journey from South America to our factory in Seattle.

  • 5. Roasting

    Roasting is a key step in flavor development. We roast our beans in a small convection oven. Since each type of cacao is unique, we roast our Colombian and Peruvian beans with completely different roast curves.

  • 6. Winnowing

    The next step is to remove the husk of the cocoa bean. Our Winnower crushes the beans into pieces and uses vacuums to remove the husks, leaving us with tiny cocoa nibs!

  • 7. Milling

    Time to pulverize! We toss our nibs into our large stone grinders and, over a 24-48 hours period, the nibs will be pulverized into a liquid form. We add sugar halfway through that process, giving us liquid chocolate!

  • Tempering and Depositing

    8. Tempering and Depositing

    The final steps are to temper the chocolate (come take a class, and we’ll tell you all about that), add any extra fun inclusion, and then deposit the liquid chocolate into our molds.

  • Chocolate Bar Mold Graphic

    9. Bar Mold

    After letting that chocolate cool and solidify for a short period of time - you got a chocolate bar, baby!

We’ve got bars.

Online web store, coming soon!