chocolate event

I never really thought of how chocolate came to be in the nice, sweet candy for that I too often enjoy. I never realized that cacao beans could only be grown within twenty degrees of the equator and thus in only one of the fifty United States. There is a lot that I never knew about chocolate until I attended the chocolate and sustainability talk at Eden Hall.
Since it is virtually impossible to produce cacao beans in the United States they are imported from the cacao belt along the equator. Emily from Taza Chocolate in Boston explained that the chocolate they sell comes from the Dominican Republic. The process varies for every chocolate company in the world how much of the process from cacao bean to edible chocolate is done in the factories of the chocolate companies and how much is done on the farms where the cacao beans are grown. Taza Chocolate gets the cacao beans and baca straight from the farm in the Dominican Republic to their factory in Boston once the beans have been fermented and dried. At their factory they proceed to winnow the cacao seeds by taking off the shell and the germ of the seed and then breaking the seeds into nibs. I tasted some of the nibs and they are not quite as bitter as I had expected them to be, in fact less bitter than a plain coffee bean. Once the seeds have been turned into nibs they are then ground into liquor using stone rather than typical metal machinery. The liquor is then combined with some sugar and eventually sent to be tempered. By raising and lowering the temperature of the chocolate they are able to give it the unique flavor and bite that is associated with Taza Chocolate. Once the chocolate is ready it is then molded and eventually hand packed to be shipped and sold around the world in eco-friendly packaging. I find the Taza Chocolate company to be very intriguing. Since it is hard to make “local” chocolate this company does the best that they can to produce a product that is as sustainable to the area where it is both harvested and finally produced. Since the chocolate made by Taza Chocolate is not the standard smooth milk or dark chocolate there is a stand out quality that allows this brand of chocolate to travel farther than some small chocolate companies. Using a traditional Mexican stone press to grind the cacao nibs and adding different flavors, such as more salt or malino, Taza Chocolate has been able to make a bigger name for a smaller company.
I found it very interesting to hear about the chocolate from the Philadelphia confectionary. Though the chocolate is not produced on the grounds of the company, the confectionary still does its best to make their chocolate local. By including products from local gardens, including schools, to flavor the chocolate the confectionary is able to make their chocolate as local as they can. Not only do they use the foods that are available to them for flavoring they also make sure to keep with what is in season rather than freezing something to have it year round. Keeping the flavorings for the chocolate local and fresh is a great way to incorporate the community into a much larger corporation.
The chocolate from the Grenada Chocolate Company was very tasty and interesting. I had never realized that the majority of the chocolate that is produced today is taken away from the land that it is grown on to be processed elsewhere. The Grenada Company keeps the cacao beans that they harvest on their land and process the beans all the way through the final steps of packaging and selling a dark chocolate bar. This process of keeping all of the chocolate making on the land is wonderful because it allows the workers to no longer feel that they are simply paid labor for a large company on another continent. By watching the pods come off the trees to being fermented to being sweetened to eventually being shipped out as bars is a task that makes the workers feel proud. The Grenada Chocolate Company is one of the few organic chocolate companies, especially since they are able to see the entire production of the food they are producing.
In class we have discussed local food and how that affects the communities that it comes from. Since chocolate isn’t usually produced completely locally the trip that it takes affects even more people. When chocolate is able to be produced entirely locally, like in Grenada, it is still not local for Americans and it is often difficult for us to understand that we can’t have things that are made here be considered local. Even when we can’t make things local it is important to watch the effect that a product has on the environment, the land and the people. Organic farms like the Grenada farm are working towards improving their carbon footprint as are companies like Taza Chocolate who use biodegradable packaging materials to attempt to help the environment once the chocolate is out of their hands. One of the most important parts of a production that often spans countries, if not continents, is the treatment of the workers. The worker run company in Grenada is in good hands but places like the Dominican Republic are often neglected when it comes to workers wages and conditions. I wish I had asked Emily about the workers on the farm where they get their beans, if they might be fair trade or similar.
My biggest question about chocolate and its production is probably similar to that of many Americans who are looking to bring everything to America and not be dependent on as many people: is it possible to grow chocolate in the United States? I know that chocolate can only grow twenty degrees from the equator but would something like a green house make it possible to grow cacao trees in different climates? This said, more importantly would it be worth the cost to build such a facility and to take away work from people who are most likely very dependent on growing cacao beans?