Taza Chocolate- Massachusetts, USA (via Mexico)

With Halloween over, there is no lack of candy in my office. In fact, I even mailed my coworkers (see comments below for full email), imploring them to bring in all of their children’s candies and leftovers directly to my desk, in order to ensure a good batch of candies for me to pick from. My coworkers dutifully came through. 

While eating their children’s mini-sized and bite-sized sweets, I took note of how creamy and smooth some of the chocolates were. As an amateur baker and a trained Nutritionist, I gravitated towards the ingredient list on the packaging only to find the following items: corn syrup, soy lecithin, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, yellow 5, red 40, TBHQ, citric acid, and cacao. Even if I wanted to reproduce this candy bar, I couldn’t do it without a chemistry set. 

One chocolate that you wont find these ingredients in is Taza Stone Ground Organic Chocolate. Taza chocolates only have four ingredients: cacao, cocoa butter, raw cane sugar, and whole vanilla bean. Years ago, this ingredient list would not have been unusual. But in today’s world of processed foods that can outlast seven Halloweens due to the amounts of preservatives in them, Taza chocolate stands out. 

Hot chocolate awaiting guests at the Taza factory.

In fact, there are several reasons why this chocolate is a cut above the rest, and certainly different from the traditional American or Swiss chocolate that our palates are accustomed to. To begin, Taza Chocolate was the product of one of the creators’ (Alex Whitmore) trips to Oaxaca, Mexico. While doing anthropologic research, which was his field at the time, Whitmore noted that the custom in Oaxaca, was to use chocolates for drinks rather than as a primary sweet. As such, the chocolate is presented in a disc shape to make it more conducive to melting for drinks. Furthermore, because the cacao bean is stone ground, the chocolate itself is very gritty when eaten raw. Taza even encourages the use of traditional Mexican flavors in its chocolates. So it is not a surprise that their chili and cinnamon flavors are some of the best, and most authentic. With these flavors, the chocolate warms your mouth as it melts down your throat—a unique sensation that you don’t get from making s’mores! 

Hand made grinding stone. And author :)

Whitmore conceded to his curiosity and inevitably studied the art of chocolate making while in Oaxaca. He learned how to carve his own circular granite stones for grinding cacao beans as well as what the steps are in creating exceptional Mexican chocolate.

The first step in making the chocolate is to harvest the beans. Taza cacao beans are harvested from a sustainable forest in the Dominican Republic. They are then fermented in the DR by exposing the sugars and pulp that occur naturally in the cacao bean to bacteria and yeast that occur naturally in the air. This fermentation process takes approximately seven days. The beans are then dried in a “secadora” (essentially a greenhouse) where the change from their white color (believe it or not) to the brown of chocolate that we are all familiar with. Finally, the beans are bagged and shipped to Somerville, Massachusetts, home of the Taza Chocolate Factory. 

Cacao beans are not actually a food until they are roasted. In order to do this, the Taza Team traveled to Italy where they found an old nut and bean roaster that was shipped to Somerville and renovated for Taza use. After being roasted, the beans are cooled and placed into a cacao winnower (another old Italian find), which is used to shell the beans. The shells are separated from the beans, which at this point in the process are called “nibs”. Nibs are used in a number of recipes including Mem Teas, eaten alone, or a personal favorite, covered in Taza chocolate.  15,000 lbs of nibs produces 8,000 bars of chocolate. (Taza does make chocolate bars that are eaten as traditional chocolate, versus the discs that are primarily used for making drinks, but are equally satisfying by themselves.)

Winnower (left/white) and roaster (right/red).

The molinos (grinders) are the first step for the nibs. Once ground, the nibs become a thick and pasty “chocolate liquor”. The chocolate liquor is the moved to a yellow tank where sugar is added, and is now called a “chocolate mass”. For chocolate discs, the chocolate mass then goes through a second grinding to better break down the sugar crystals. The mass is then piped into a white holding tank that keeps it liquid and relatively smooth, and ready to be deposited into the disc mold in the piping room. Once it is molded, the chocolate goes into a cold room (55°) to harden for an hour. Afterwards, it is wrapped and shipped to one of Taza’s many buyers! The entire process from bean to bar takes a total of two days. 

Molinos (left and center). 

Piping room (with Halloween guest).

The Taza company is dedicated to the environment. They use beans that are harvested sustainably. They buy used machines and renovate them to avoid waste. They use soy ink to print on their labels. And they box their products in such a way that the boxes can be reused for displays. The chocolates can be found in many organic food stores in 45 out of 50 states, as well as in several different countries. 

For more information about Taza and its history, visit http://www.tazachocolate.com/AboutUs. Note that several of the items that are available now are factory limited due to company brainstorms and buyer responses. If you like what you see, get it now. : )

Me with two cacao beans... and a hairnet (factory rules).