Story

The beans for this bar come from Maya Mountain Cacao, Ltd., a social enterprise that buys freshly harvested, unfermented cacao from indigenous Mayan smallholder farmers in southern Belize, then gathers the beans at a centralized fermentary in Punta Gorda. By fermenting and drying all the beans in one place, Maya Mountain Cacao carefully controls quality and flavor consistency in their cocoa, allowing them to fetch a high price. This in turn empowers Maya Mountain Cacao to pay farmers extremely well for their beans.

For this 2018 harvest, Dandelion designed a flavor profile to emphasize the beans’ bright, tangy fruitiness.

The popularity of both craft chocolate and bars made from Belizean cacao in particular has been growing for years. With brands like Mast Brothers, Dandelion Chocolate, and Taza Chocolate producing Belizean bars, people around the world started to pay attention to the tiny amount of cocoa coming out of Southern Belize. This led to something of a gold rush.

Up until 2016, the only buyers in Toledo were MMC and the Toledo Cacao Growers Association (TCGA), which was started in 1984 and exclusively sells to Green & Black’s. In 2017, six new buyers joined the market, operating with a variety of business models. XOCO Gourmet Cocoa & Couverture (XOCO), which operates in multiple Central American countries, sells a specific high-priced clone to producers as part of an outgrower structure (including exclusivity) with the promise of a similarly high return when the cacao is purchased.

Features

Cacao content - 85%. 

2018 Harvest

Tasting Notes: pineapple, Greek yogurt, and toasted sourdough bread

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.