Story

These beans come from the Tumaco region of Colombia, where a company called Cacao Hunters buys and blends beans from small co-ops, and encourages cacao diversity by working with farmers to cultivate regional varieties. Cacao Hunters then coordinates with Uncommon Cacao, a local business which provides cocoa to chocolate makers willing to pay a premium for high-quality beans. Tumaco beans are roasted to accentuate their inherent creaminess.

Cacao Hunters is the first Colombian company that is locally sourcing and producing chocolate in Colombia. They represent the sort of partner that you hope to find as they are open to innovation and experimentation which allows them to produce the best cacao possible. Cacao Hunters are passionately working with farmers producing local cultivars in regions for which income generation has been very difficult due to recent conflict. Owners Carlos Ignacio Velasco and Mayumi Ogata (a former pastry chef) met in 2009 in Japan and have been working together since then in challenging areas of Colombia to produce high-quality cacao.

Tumaco makes up more than 60% of the cacao that Cacao Hunters use for their own chocolate brand and they have strong alliances with the local producers, supporting families through higher and more stable prices. Cacao Hunters works with a variety of associations in Tumaco. Each association ferments their own cacao, using assistance and advice from Cacao Hunters. You can now find Cacao Hunters in the best chocolate shops in major Colombian cities. In 2016, the Cacao Hunters’ Tumaco bar won for best milk chocolate bar in a competition of 900 products in Osaka, Japan.

Features

Cacao content - 70%. 

2017 Harvest

Tasting Notes: vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and toasted nuts

Ingredients

All of our single-origin chocolate is made with just cocoa beans and sugar; no added cocoa butter, lecithin, or vanilla. Our chocolate is free of soy, dairy, eggs, and gluten, and it is made in a factory that does not process nuts.

cacao beans, cane sugar 

Weight: 56 g 

Maker Description

Dandelion Chocolate, a bean-to-bar chocolate maker in San Francisco's Mission District. For over 10 years, we've been turning cocoa beans and organic sugar into single-origin dark chocolate. We travel and build lasting relationships with cocoa farmers and producers, then craft small batches of chocolate back home in our San Francisco factory. With a minimal approach, we aim to highlight different cocoa beans' distinctive flavor notes—from classic fudge to tangy fruit.