All Blog Posts (543)

The Hawaii Chocolate Meeting

Aloha! Thanks to the replies. We conducted a survey to assess the status of Hawaii cacao/chocolate industry and thanks to those who fed us the necessary information. The results were presented during the Hawaii Chocolate meeting last September 28, 2011 at the Hawaii State Capitol. Thanks to Skip Bittenbender and Amy Hammond who made this meeting possible. The participants agreed to organize Hawaii Chocolate Association, which willprovide central…

Our family has begun a trip around the world in search of cacao and chocolate. We will be travelling with our kids to France, Germany, Italy, Madagascar, Vietnam, Mexico, Ecuador, and many others. We have started blogging about it on a new site called The Chocolate Chronicles (founded by The Chocolate Life's Clay Gordon).

 To find out more about us, try our Backgrounder.

To read the first few…

Took NJ Transit into Port Authority arriving around 11:00am in the City.  Walked down to Meadow on 10^th Street on Hudson.  Joe Salvatore from Madecasse Chocolate was listed to be there with no specific time and found out on arrival he will show up at 2pm and stay until 5pm.  Looked for a while at their amazing varieties of chocolates.  I had tried some of them and read about many others on the Internet.  Also learned there are many more out there I have never heard about.  I have…

I will be at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris from Oct 20 - Oct 24, if  you plan to attend please stop by the Brazilian booth and lets talk. I will  be pleased to show you our best beans and chocolates.  There will be a good opportunity to meet and chat with many Brazilian cocoa growers.  Check our our web site www.bahiacocoabean.com.br.

[Note: This post was edited by Clay to include a title. Lola Gedeon is the wife of…

Chocolate is more than just chocolate - the consumer is often uncritical in its selection and simply eats it without giving it a second thought. This blog(book) communicates knowledge about chocolate in order to in crease the pleasure in its consumption. Chocolate, such as is enjoyed today, is the product of a variety of specialist processes tailored to achieve maximum pleasure. This blog(book) contains a wealth of interesting facts and, after reading it, you will no longer just consume…

As I have discussed in previous posts, a truly valid definition of the Arriba Nacional term when applied to Ecuadorian cacao, or simply the Arriba name, includes Nacional beans sourced in parts of the Province of Guayas, the Province of Los Ríos and a small fraction of the Province of Bolívar. Ecuador historically produced fine flavor cacao from many other areas which were all Nacional beans but marketed under distinct names, including Bahia-from the area around Bahia de Caraquez, not to be…

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8FT CHOCOLATE CASE FOR SALE AT AN AMAZING PRICE! $1900.00....ZERO HUMITITY, TEMPERTURE CONTROL, INCLUDES ACRYLIC TRAYS! EMAIL FOR MORE INFO

Recently, I had a terrible experience using Chocoa brand chocolate for mold shells. Although, it the taste is similar to Cacao Barry, it didn't crystalize properly (even after several tests).

I noticed Chocoley has a couveture chocolate, but I'm not familiar with it? Does anyone have experience with their line of chocolates?

Hello!!!!

I am a chocolate lover, and i have recently started to consider opening an chocolate shop wih a friend.

I am an artist and at the same time I have been running a family shopping mall.

I want ti change career and have been thinking about the chocolate business.

My friend is a documentalist.

We have been investigating but appart from the love of chocolate i do not know anything about the business.

Any advice>??one of my…

As President of Project Hope and Fairness, I spent 3 weeks in Ghana and Cameroon this summer and distributed tools to 8 villages using money raised by the NGO.  To read about my adventures, please visit  www.sweetearthchocolates.blogspot.com.

I spent 10 days in Cameroon, talking to people in government and industry about building a cocoa study center near the town of Ebalowa, the…

Abstract

Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) is an important economic crop in the Bolivian Amazon. Bolivian farmers both cultivate cacao, and extract fruits from wild stands in the Beni River region and in valleys of the Andes foothills. The germplasm group traditionally used is presently referred to as ‘‘Cacao Nacional Boliviano’’ (CNB). Using DNA fingerprinting technology based on microsatellite markers, we genotyped 164 Bolivian cacao acces- sions, including both cultivated…

RITTER SPORT, a large German company manufacturing industrial and cheap chocolate for gas stations and supermarkets, is attacking fine chocolate makers like DOMORI, ROVIRA, MAGLIO, CONSTANT, ÅKESSON'S and many others because of the square shape of our bars... they claim that they are the only ones in the world that can make square chocolate bars...How laughable is this! Should there be any risk of confusion, we would be the ones that would have to fear any damage for our brands. I mean,…

Hi! I am Madel, a Fulbright Scholar currently working with Dr. Skip Bittenbender on a research on cacao at the UH . Right now we're listing the cacao growers, propagators, Chocolatiers/artisan with a hope that we can meet sometime to discuss on the cacao industry in Hawaii and aim to have a wonderful Hawaii Cacao industry in the future. 

Will you care to email me your name, Farm/bussiness location, home address, email address. Please state the no. of cacao trees you have; the…

Thank you all for your enthusiastic responses and showing interest in the development of Original Beans’ new recipe! What happened after two weeks? Is the new chocolate still so fruity?

How does Organic Grand Cru sound? I like it. We have waited for the first organic harvest from Congo (Cru Virunga) to make the change for all products.

But the most important thing we have changed in our recipe has to do with conching, a truly magic process in the art of making fine chocolate.…