Chocolate is love: I’ve assembled a small number of retail Valentine’s Day craft chocolate gift sets, and I’d love to send one to you or your gift recipient if you wish! The chocolate in these sets is, as always,
Chocolate tasting at Hannah’s Bretzel! Join me in Chicago February 1 or 2, 2019!
Hello there!
Happy Valentine’s Day season! To celebrate, I’m holding seated chocolate tastings, and I hope you’ll join me!
Details for Chicago chocolate tastings:
What: This Valentine’s Day season, tour the world of chocolate without leaving your seat, during this 90-minute chocolate tasting led by chocolate expert and original chocolate tours founder Valerie Beck. Why is chocolate associated with love? Why does it lift our mood? We’ll focus on the answers, and on sustainable bean-to-bar chocolate. And we’ll taste a lot of top craft chocolate brands at this fun, fascinating, and delicious seated chocolate tasting! Great for couples, singles, or girls’ day out!
When: Friday and Saturday, February 1 and 2, 2019, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm.
Cost: $45 per person, or $35 per student or senior. Includes chocolate samples. You can purchase tickets for the chocolate tastings directly through Valerie’s PayPal link.
Details for Los Angeles chocolate tasting, including Letterpress Chocolate micro-factory tour:
What: This Valentine’s Day, explore the world of chocolate at LA’s local small-batch artisan chocolate manufactory, Letterpress Chocolate, during this 90-minute chocolate tasting event led by chocolate expert and original chocolate tours founder Valerie Beck. Why is chocolate associated with love? Why does it lift our mood? We’ll focus on the answers, and on sustainable bean-to-bar chocolate made onsite. And we’ll taste a lot of luscious Letterpress Chocolate at this fun, fascinating, and delicious chocolate tasting and factory tour! Great for couples, singles, or girls’ night out!
Cost: $50 per person, or $45 per student or senior. Includes chocolate samples. You can purchase tickets for the chocolate tastings directly through Valerie’s PayPal link.
See bean-to-bar chocolate being made at Letterpress Chocolate, and taste the finished products! Join me in Los Angeles on Valentine’s Day, 2019!
I’m commuting between Los Angeles and Chicago this winter, to teach a class at UCLA Extension on International Business Law, to promote craft chocolate like local LA small-batch wonder Letterpress Chocolate, and to thaw out from Chicago winters!
I don’t drive, and LA is a very car-focused city as you know, so this adds a layer of adventure!
I miss you, and won’t this be a fun and tasty way to celebrate the holidays and new year! This is just from December 17 through January 6, and after that we’ll see!
You’re the first to know: I might have some Los Angeles dates after that; let me know if you’re interested!
Here are the links:
Seated chocolate tastings – a fun, fascinating, and delicious tour without leaving your seat –
To support cacao and chocolate that are slavery-free and sustainable, you can use the #chocolatefreedomproject hashtag, purchase transparent-trade chocolate, and let brands know you care about what’s in your chocolate, and who grew your cacao.
Thank you and keep eating real chocolate!
Onward and upward!
Valerie
On my way to sweet Seattle for the talk and chocolate festival!
Here’s some of the delicious craft chocolate and specialty cacao we tasted at my talk for Culinary Historians – click for the podcast!
Hello!
Need a lift? The awesome group Culinary Historians of Chicago just uploaded the podcast of the upbeat chocolate- and giggle-filled talk I gave for them in September 2017, and here it is!
It’s called “From Cacao to Craft Chocolate: Stories from the Past, Sustainability for the Future,” and I hope you enjoy it! [Note: Podcast ends abruptly during question period due to technical issues.]
Need a talk and tasting for your group? Here are some details!
The Cocoa Barometer 2018 report is out, and it reminds us that 2.1 million children work on cacao farms in West Africa, so that shelves in the US and Europe and elsewhere can stay stocked with cheap chocolate.
The report also points out that
“not a single company or government is anywhere near the sector-wide objective to eliminate child labour. It is high time for efforts to be increased. In that light, it is important to stress that child labour is a symptom of deeper problems; without tackling systemic poverty and a lack of local infrastructures, child labour will not be eradicated.”
Social justice Sunday / sustainability Sunday! Reports show 2.1 million children work on cacao farms in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, so shelves in the US and Europe and elsewhere can stay stocked with cheap chocolate from big brands.
🌟
The Cacao Barometer 2018 report has been released, and reminds us that the cause of child labor is poverty. The authors emphasize that “not a single company or government is anywhere near reaching the sector-wide objective of the elimination of child labour, and not even near their commitments of a 70% reduction of child labour by 2020.” You can see the report on my blog at http://www.chocolateuplift.com.
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Do you agree we can vote with our $, €, voices, and ethics? Companies will act when we demand it. We are empowered:
We can tell Hershey/Nestle/Mars/Mondelez/Ferrero(Nutella)/Callebaut and other big brands – and the retailers who carry them – that we want farmers to be paid a living wage instead of 50 cents per day, and that we want the brands to use #slaveryfree cacao and let kids go to school.
🌟
As I highlight in my talks, we can also buy craft chocolate and can read labels to make sure we see:
1. the cacao country of origin, just as a bottle of wine tells you where the grapes are from; if a brand has no transparency on who grew the cacao, ask what they’re hiding,
2. a small-batch brand that cares about human rights and sustainability in cacao, which also leads to better flavor through better agricultural practices and fair payments, and
3. a soy-free brand / clean ingredients, as chemical additives often go with low-quality cacao from non-sustainable sources in industrial processing.
🌟 Empathy ends poverty.
That’s my #chocolatefreedomproject; join me!
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
You can also check out CREER Africa, a nonprofit children’s rescue center in Ivory Coast, which helps kids who escaped from cacao slavery or other trafficking and which I support by donating meals to the kids at the center, as a way to make a difference.
High school and college students can learn about business and entrepreneurship from the inside, and can build their professional networks, by touring successful large, small, and start-up businesses and meeting the owners or managers, through my immersive educational excursion program.
This combines my love of educating and of entrepreneurship. And of course there will be chocolate!
First new session: June 25 – 29, 2018, in Chicago.
Details:
“5 days, 5 field trips to businesses.
Meet successful entrepreneurs and managers, tour their companies, and learn their secrets, habits, and techniques.
Program created and led by entrepreneur, award winning instructor, and former Harvard lawyer Valerie Beck, who will share her business success roadmap involving networking, mentoring, and volunteering.
$900 per student, includes materials and lunches. Limited to 10 students, in high school or college. 10 am – 4 pm each day, except for 1 longer day with a longer field trip.
Apply by email to valerie.beck@post.harvard.edu with name, school, age, email address, why you want to participate in the program, and why you are interested in business.
Payment due upon acceptance, to hold your spot. Email with any questions.
A fun and educational week awaits our A-List Student Excursion participants!”
ool, age
Click for the full webpage, which includes reviews from students.
By Valerie Beck, Chocolate Broker, Distributor, Speaker, Muse
The Good Food Awards are the Oscars of US-made artisan food, recognizing sustainability, social impact, and deliciousness, and the 8th annual awards celebration last night in San Francisco was a celebration of good food indeed, including amazing craft chocolate and spectacular confections!
There were 199 winners in 15 categories, and I’m outrageously proud of and impressed by those craft chocolate makers and confectioners with whom I have the honor to work or represent, who were recognized onstage:
Good King
Months prior to the awards, I encouraged clients and contacts to enter from around the country, including some who hadn’t entered before, such as Xocolatl, first time entrant and already a winner!
I was also thrilled to be invited help behind the scenes last September in San Francisco, coordinating the judging process at the blind tasting – I didn’t want to be a judge because I wouldn’t want anyone to imagine that I chose my clients and contacts to win, even if subconsciously – and it was inspiring to see so much enthusiasm and so much wonderful sustainable food!
Scroll for scenes, including of the fabulous afterparty at AirBnB headquarters where we were able to sample exquisiteness from winners in all categories, from cheese and bread, to fish and charcuterie, to beer and spirits, pickles and pantry, and of course chocolate and confections!
“Your power to choose the direction of your life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.” —Stephen Covey
New beginnings: reinvented Chocolate Naive, best of 2017!
Magic at hand: Chocolate Naive, reinvented inside and out, comes from the innovating and iconoclastic mind of Domantas Uzpalis, my Chocolate Uplift 2017 Chocolate Maker of the Year!
Domantas uses custom technology, proprietary processes, creative concepts, and unique flavor profiles involving housemade inclusions, to create the exquisite taste, outrageously smooth and seamless texture, and mind-expanding experience of this one-of-a-kind brand, making it my best-in-show when he previewed his newly reimagined line at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco in January 2017! Domantas combines a kind heart and a scientific mind, both enlivened with keen humor, and his chocolate blends simplicity and sophistication, reinvented with authentic precision.
Chocolate Naive is made in Vilnius, Lithuania, and perhaps like that historically fascinating and contemporary cutting-edge city just a 1.5 hour flight from Stockholm or a 2.5 hour flight from Paris, the chocolate is simple yet sophisticated, elegant while whimsical, worldly yet naive.
2017 Chocolate Uplift Chocolate Maker of the Year…
…Domantas Uzpalis, founder of Chocolate Naive!
#naivefever
#chocolateforbreakfast
For example, Chocolate Naive’s angelic Kefir chocolate bar, part of the brand’s Forager collection, is silky and delicious. I included it in my June Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes to rapturous welcome by subscribers, as it brings a refreshing yet gentle tang from Domantas’s housemade kefir, which he blends into his exquisite craft chocolate, in this case on Bolivia cacao. The kefir isn’t layered upon the chocolate, or sandwiched between chocolate, it’s *in* the chocolate, for a marvelously smooth journey. (If you’re wondering what is kefir, click to learn more!) The bar is a probiotic paradise, in a dance of double fermentation, as both kefir and chocolate are fermented foods!
As are all of the bars in my subscription boxes and at my speaking engagements, where Kefir has also been a huge hit, it’s also sustainable, child-slavery-free (yes, you read that correctly, and if you’ve been following, you know that raising awareness of and eradicating child slave labor in cacao and chocolate is a mission of mine through my #chocolatefreedomproject; click for a Fortune Magazine video and article on child slave labor in Big Chocolate), soy-free, small-batch, and scrumptious. And the Kefir bar seems particularly well suited for breakfast! Click for the unboxing video!
Subtle intensity – or intense subtlety? – is created in the Spices bar from Chocolate Naive by Domantas Uzpalis, my Chocolate Uplift 2017 Chocolate Maker of the Year.
Then in December 2017 I selected Chocolate Naive’s Spices chocolate bar, part of the Equator collection, with its bold and warm intensity, for my subscription boxes, and it too was a massive success. It contains a special house blend of cinnamon, ancho pepper, and vanilla, adding winter warmth and sultry spice to the luscious chocolate into which it is seamlessly mixed, all with signature saturated flavor, again evoking simplicity and sophistication simultaneously. (There’s no December unboxing video yet; I’m looking for a new videographer for my unboxing videos — can you help??)
And then there’s the Tahini bar with housemade tahini, the Porcini bar with locally foraged mushrooms, the Peanut Butter bar with housemade peanut butter – you get the idea! And the idea is big.
Watch for this luscious yet controlled bar in my January Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes!
Chocolate Naive was founded in 2010, and reinvented inside and out for the recent relaunch. New Naive presents exquisite chocolate bars made from new recipes, eliminating soy lecithin, and based on just cacao and sugar — all you need! Click to see why I don’t want soy lecithin in my chocolate; short answer: because it’s an industrial slurry processed with hexane and acetone, with effects on and implications for flavor, texture, and health.
Indeed, the craft chocolate movement generally involves a reimagining of 20th century corporate business models that were based on maximum profit extraction and conformity of product, at the expense of personal, public, or environmental health and justice. Instead, in the craft mindset, elements such as real flavor, direct trade, individuality within community, social justice, delicious healthfulness, and sustainable production are paramount.
I have enormous respect for Domantas for reworking and redefining his recipes and techniques — no easy process — and for creating a new line that showcases his precision and purity with increased fidelity. He makes difficult look easy, and taste amazing. That’s power.
Naive nano_lots: micro batch, mega depth
And Domantas didn’t stop there: after reinventing Chocolate Naive, he did it again! In mid 2017 he launched his Nano_Lot collection, limited edition chocolate bars made from micro batches of exclusive cacao. The depth and uniqueness of flavor achieved in the nano_lot bars continues the Naive project of extending our conception of what chocolate tastes like and what the texture feels like. We expect bean-to-bar chocolate to tell us a story, to engage us with a certain complexity, moving into new universes compared with one-note industrial chocolate. Here, the multi-dimensionality of the stories that Domantas tells with his nano_lots goes deep, and invites pause and repose, with eyes closed — or jumping, dancing, and cavorting, eyes open!
The nano_lot package inserts explain fascinating details of the scientific or geologic elements and processes behind these magnificent bars, such as cacao fermentation notes, chocolate flavor profiles, and history of the unique cacao farms from which Domantas sourced these limited-quantity highest-quality cacaos.
Domantas told me that with such small batches of cacao, he has just one chance to get it right. And he succeeds! What would you say to a Chocolate Uplift Travel Club trip to Vilnius in 2018, to see and learn more for ourselves, as Domantas spins cacao into chocolate?
Meanwhile, why the delightful logo of the man riding an impossible old fashioned penny-farthing bicycle with a missing back wheel, making it a sort of unicycle, possibly uphill, or perhaps off a cliff of naivete as the drawing seems to teeter at the top of the text? Domantas charmingly told me that the logo and business name represent his perspective that to think he can make first-class chocolate in Lithuania, he must be a fool, or naive. We know he is a genius, and leader.
Domantas says:
“Chocolate is as luxuriant as my most vivid dream and as humble as my simple reality.”
My Chocolate Uplift box customers say:
“Perfection of smoothness like I never tasted, with a completely rare and different flavor!”
“Wonderful and delicious inside and out.”
“The Kefir bar!!!! Oh my!!!!!!”
In gratitude and delight, here’s to Chocolate Naive’s deliciously deceptive saturated simplicity, and to dear Domantas Uzpalis, Chocolate Uplift 2017 Chocolate Maker of the Year!
Scroll for more Naive, and “keep eating real chocolate!”
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Founder Valerie’s Original Chocolate Tours and Chocolate Uplift
Sustainable Craft Chocolate & Cacao Distribution
wholesale, retail, subscription box, tours www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com
social: @chocolateuplift
Uplift Through Chocolate!
Old Naive…and New Naive, reformulated inside and out! Here’s the sultry Super Dark on grapefruit chez moi……and more New Naive, sustainable and scrumptious! Pro tip: don’t miss the beautiful stories on the back of each package!Chocolate Naive’s newest fantastic nano_lot, made from Colombia cacao from a biodiverse farm on the Ariari River and selected as one of the best Colombian cacaos of 2017, debuted at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, in November 2017, and I immediately claimed it and everything else I could : ) This new bar gives me notes of banana and bread, with a finish of sweet almond and dry lemon, amid layers of dense yet inviting complexity that deliver shades of bright wood or forest. That’s all from the cacao, and Domantas’s working of it!New: find Chocolate Naive’s Nicalizo Nicaragua nano_lot at Reprise Coffee Roasters, near Chicago, which roasts Nicaragua coffee! I also distribute additional Naive to additional locations, such as: 4121 Main in Pittsburgh, Honeycreeper Chocolate in Birmingham, and Mmelo Boutique Confections in Columbus!
Chocolate Naive Spices bar in my December 2017 Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes
I sampled the Kefir bar to my audience when I spoke at the 2017 Northwest Chocolate Festival on Chocolate Health Benefits: Body, Mind, Soul
Lights, camera, action: behind the scenes while taping the unboxing video featuring Naive’s Kefir bar
Chocolate Naive Kefir bar in my June 2017 Chocolate Uplift craft chocolate subscription boxes
Reimagined Chocolate Naive inspired awe and ecstasy at the January 2017 New Naive launch at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.Chocolate Naive’s Ambrosia bar is made with local Lithuanian bee pollen.Silly and quirky at the 2017 Northwest Chocolate Festival, with big kisses to my ultra esteemed first 3 Chocolate Makers of the Year: Domantas Uzpalis of Chocolate Naive, 2017; Taylor Kennedy of Sirene Chocolate, 2015; Hans Westerink of Violet Sky Chocolate, 2016. It is a deep joy and a great honor to work with these gentlemen of chocolate, and to distribute and share their artistry! And it was fun to introduce them to each other!3, 2, 1, Naive: Taylor, yours truly, and Domantas at the Chocolate Naive booth at the Northwest Chocolate Festival!Power at hand: beloved Chocolate Naive, 2017 champion! #naivefever
Chocolate Uplift 