Story

Ritual had been out of cacao from Ecuador for a while due to a multitude of issues at the origin of production. In 2016, an earthquake hit all of Ecuador, which plummeted the country into a state of turmoil. As a result, the government had to raise all sorts of taxes, including property taxes for larger estates to fund the recovery of the country. This included the Balao farm that Ritual had bought cacao beans from. The rise in taxes became financially prohibitive, which shut down the farm. Since then, to reproduce an identical flavor for the Ecuador bars, Ritual had sourced beans from local smaller farms which were not as hard hit by the new regulations and utilized similar fermentation and drying techniques to retain a similar profile. The chocolate that Ritual was able to produce with the new Camino Verde beans is extremely similar to their old “Balao” flavor. It’s still rich, fudgy, chocolatey and faintly floral with a bit of a honey high note. If you loved Ecuador bars, we think you’ll love this version.

We feel as chocolate sourcers that it is paramount to support the farmers our chocolate makers work with through these changes, be it climate, political or financial. We also want to be fully transparent with any changes to how or where our makers source our cacao and we are here to answer any more questions you may have.

Features

Cacao Percentage: 75%

Ingredients 

Cacao, Organic Cane Sugar, Organic Cocoa Butter

Weight: 60g 

Maker Description

Davies and Stout spent about a year researching and testing different methods of chocolate making before they launched Ritual Chocolate in Denver, eight years ago. They started with one bar and slowly added more over time. Now, they have an assortment of bars and make everyone at their shop on Iron Horse Drive. Ritual aims to be as sustainable and ethical as possible, and the premium prices on their bars trickles directly down to a living wage paid to the well-respected plantation farmers.