A day to celebrate love and chocolate? Every day!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Chocolate Uplift Founder
Professor Valerie Beck Tutoring and Coaching
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Women in Chocolate: Law Firm Edition!
Latham & Watkins
Summer Tasting Event
July 20, 2023
What a pleasure to hold a special chocolate tasting for a wonderful Women Lawyers Group, plus amazing summer associates, at esteemed Chicago law firm Latham & Watkins, especially as I am a former lawyer myself!
Click for my slides, and be sure to see the notes section under each slide for info, videos, and other links and resources.
Menu:
- Xocolatl Small-Batch Chocolate of Atlanta, wife-husband owned: Peru Pangoa 70% squares and accompanying cocoa bean from the same origin
- Askanya Chocolate of Haiti, woman-owned: Paradis 47% Dark Milk mini bars
- Askanya Chocolate of Haiti, woman-owned: Bouquet Vert 65% Dark with Lime mini bars
- 9th & Larkin Chocolate of San Francisco, woman-owned: Dominican Republic Dark Chocolate 72% disks with Candied Yuzu
- Cocoa & Co. of Chicago, woman-owned: Dark Salted Caramel bonbons in Valrhona 72% Araguani Venezuela
My “Women in Chocolate” presentation covered the history and health benefits of chocolate by tracing women’s participation and leadership in the global story and process of cacao and chocolate:
- Ancient cacao:
- Women were the chocolate makers in the ancient world of the Maya and other cultures because they knew about plant pharmacology and how to create medicinal beverages.
- European colonizers wanting to bury indigenous cultures called these native Central American experts “cacao witches,” but today the women’s knowledge of the health benefits of chocolate is coming back.
- We’ll talk about some of these health benefits and how to make sure your chocolate contains them, and we’ll taste some delicious chocolate that does!
- Cacao today:
- Women are cacao growers on many farms today, and are paid less in some parts of the world while in other places they are paid fairly and run cacao cooperatives like the Pangoa Peru collective.
- We’ll talk about how chocolate is made and what roles women play as it goes from cocoa bean to chocolate bar.
- We’ll also discuss how to know what kind of cacao is in your chocolate and whether it has an ethical provenance. (Hint: make sure you see a cacao country of origin on your chocolate.)
- We’ll taste Pangoa Peru cocoa beans and award-winning chocolate made with their cocoa beans by wife-husband owned Xocolatl Small Batch Chocolate of Atlanta.
- Women are cacao growers on many farms today, and are paid less in some parts of the world while in other places they are paid fairly and run cacao cooperatives like the Pangoa Peru collective.
- Chocolate forever:
- Who buys most of the chocolate sold? Women! Why?
- Some of it is science: chocolate reacts with a woman’s and a man’s brain chemistry differently, and we’ll discuss the chemistry of chocolate and why we love it, while we taste more of it, such as from woman-owned brands Askanya of Haiti or 9th & Larkin of San Francisco, plus bonbons made by Chef Meg Galus for woman-owned Cocoa & Co. chocolate shop in sweet home Chicago!
- What chocolate do we choose: we can vote with our dollars for the kind of chocolate we want to see more of.
- Ultimately, chocolate is about uplift!
- Who buys most of the chocolate sold? Women! Why?
Thank you to Latham attorneys and team for making the event possible. I am thrilled we had a fun, fascinating, and delicious time!
Thank you also to dear Laine DeLeo of Fast Lane to Health superfood snacks for helping at the event!
Onward and upward — keep eating real chocolate!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Earlier in the day, on Museum Campus.
Valerie Beck
Chocolate Uplift Founder
Professor Valerie Beck Tutoring and Coaching
Cacao Harvest with OBOLO Chocolate
Hello!
Isn’t it nice to find authenticity? Authentic chocolate, made from authentic cacao, traded authentically, nourishing people and planet.
OBOLO Chocolate founder Mark Gerrits is originally from Milwaukee and is a long-time resident of South America, where he has focused on environmentalism and most recently cacao and chocolate. He and his family live in Santiago, Chile, and he visited the Pangoa cacao collective in Peru this summer, which is where he buys the cacao from which he and his team make their award-winning chocolate in Chile. Exciting news: Mark is now the godfather of a new baby born to Pangoa growers!
As a US importer and distributor of awesome OBOLO Chocolate, I video chatted with dear Mark today, and told him how much I enjoyed the photos and videos he posted from his recent trip. He told me he is the first visitor to the Pangoa collective since the current global situation began, and that he believes not only in maintaining and strengthening relationships but also in showing the world that he means what he says: his partnership with Pangoa is authentic; his cacao is truly traceable, and ethical, as it is grown with no child labor and it is organic.
As you may know, all of the brands I work with meet my 5 Ss of first-class bean-to-bar chocolate:
- slavery-free
- soy-free
- sustainable
- small-batch
- scrumptious!
Mark gave me permission to re-post his Pangoa photos, and you can see more on OBOLO’s Instagram.
You can purchase selections of OBOLO bars at
- Cocoa & Co. in Chicago or online to ship anywhere,
- Rare Bird Preserves in Oak Park, Illinois, or online to ship anywhere,
- The Chocolate Enthusiast in Colorado or online to ship anywhere,
- Totto’s Market in Chicago, and
- Yahara Chocolate in Wisconsin or online to ship anywhere.
Tell them Valerie sent you!
You can also see more about OBOLO in my posts here (including video) and here. And, at the bottom of this post I’m sharing OBOLO-focused photos I took at the Craft Chocolate Experience in San Francisco in March 2020, where I got to spend time with Mark — and so many other chocolate makers and chocolate lovers, plus photos from my own little distribution center and staging area here in sweet home Chicago!
Enjoy this photo-journey to a cacao harvest in Peru, where you’ll see the opening of a cacao pod, and fermenting, drying, and sorting the cacao, and Pangoa families!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Founder, Chocolate Uplift — Craft Chocolate Services
Wholesale, Retail, Consulting, Speaking
valerie@chocolateuplift.com
Instagram: @chocolateuplift
Repost: Healthy Dark Chocolate, How to Choose and Buy the Best
Hello!
Is all dark chocolate created equal?
Does all dark chocolate provide health benefits?
Find the answers to these questions and more in the excellent new blog post “Healthy Dark Chocolate” by dear Kim Wilson of Good King, a woman-powered social enterprise that makes delicious trail mix-style snacking cacao!
For example, see myth #3 in the article to find out why a higher cacao percentage doesn’t automatically mean more antioxidants, which popular or so-called premium brands are made in a way that decreases antioxidants by nearly 80%, and which brands will give you the health benefits you’re looking for.
Thank you, Kim, for busting myths and sharing facts, because knowledge is power!
The blog article is here, and you can buy delicious Good King snacking cacao online at the link here, or at Totto’s Market in Chicago.
Enjoy!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Founder, Chocolate Uplift — Chocolate Activism, Brokering, Consulting, Distribution
chocolateuplift@gmail.com
Instagram @chocolateuplift
Two Makers, Two Seasons, Two News Stories
Hello there, and happy equinox!
Summer and fall seem to be dancing together today in Chicago, as warm sunshine mingles with crisp air. As we enter a new season filled with new abundance, two dear craft chocolate maker clients are new at Totto’s Market (which is also new), and, they are in the news!
Gotham Chocolates is a sophisticated bean-to-bar brand by acclaimed chef Ron Paprocki of Michelin-starred Gotham Bar and Grill in New York City. Chef Ron converted a corner of his pastry kitchen into a chocolate manufactory to make pure, clean, flavorful craft chocolate for bars, bonbons, and desserts. Click here to read about Chef Ron’s background and vision; what a coincidence that he and I each lived in Germany for some years. When I first met Ron and tasted his chocolates in NYC a few years ago, I was thrilled with the exquisite precision and beauty of his work, and I’m thrilled with the new Artisan line that he has launched since, using a variety of specialty cacaos!
ÓBOLO Chocolate (the name means gift or small contribution in Spanish) is an inventive bean-to-bar brand by Midwesterner Mark Gerrits who moved to Chile for adventure after college and is still there. He founded his chocolate company in 2013, and ÓBOLO has gained B-Corporation status reflecting standards for social and environmental justice. I tasted the chocolate for the first time last year, and loved its lively use of Peru cacao. This year Mark updated his packaging, bar thickness and mould, and added a new Flavors of Chile line of bars, sharing a confident and unique new presentation in the world of craft chocolate. Click here for a story on the brand’s use of biodynamic Chilean inclusions such as herbs that grow in the Atacama desert or berries from Patagonia.
You can find a selection of Gotham Chocolates at these wonderful upscale retailers: Hannah’s Bretzel, Honeycreeper Chocolate, and Totto’s Market. Find ÓBOLO Chocolate at wonderful upscale Cocoa + Co. and Totto’s Market.
Congratulations to these two elegant and artistic craft chocolate brands as autumn begins in the Northern Hemisphere including in New York for Gotham and here in Chicago, and as spring begins in the Southern Hemisphere including in Santiago for ÓBOLO!
Wishing you a delicious season, whichever one is blowing in where you are,
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Chocolate Broker
Sweet Speaker
Founder of the original chocolate tours
Instagram @chocolateuplift
http://www.chocolateuplift.com
chocolateuplift@gmail.com
Valentine’s Chocolate Tastings in Chicago and Los Angeles
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!
When: Thursday, February 14, 2019, 6:00 pm.
Where: Letterpress Chocolate, 2835 S Robertson Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90034.
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.
Throwback: click for the story of how I started the original chocolate tours, and view a video montage from the old tour days!
Thank you, and happy Valentine’s Day!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Founder/CEO Chocolate Uplift
Instagram @chocolateuplift
Limited Engagement: Chicago Chocolate Tours and Tastings
Hello there!
Limited engagement: I’m doing a few Chicago Chocolate Tours and seated chocolate tastings!
(Click for the story of how I started the original chocolate tours, a long time ago! And click here for a video montage from the old tour days!)
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 –
Walking tours to chocolate shops – a new Belgian chocolate shop is on board along with our old favorites –
I welcome your thoughts or questions, and hope to see you there!
Thank you – onward and upward!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Founder/CEO Chocolate Uplift
Sustainable Craft Chocolate Distribution, Talks, Tastings
@chocolateuplift
A-List Student Excursions
I’m excited to share my newest venture: A-List Student Excursions!
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.
Onward and upward!
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Founder: Chocolate Uplift and the original Chocolate Tours, and A-List Student Excursions
Chocolatasm: Light Touch, Strong Success
by Valerie Beck, Chocolate Expert and Chocolate Broker
As soon as I saw the chocolates by Chocolatasm on Instagram, I knew they were something special. When I tasted them, I was impressed with their exquisite subtlety and delicate yet impactful flavor combinations. And when I spoke with the chocolatier behind the brand, I knew he was a true professional.
Chef/chocolatier Paul Kearins was born in London, worked as a pastry chef and chocolatier in Amsterdam, and now lives and creates in Blue Ridge, Georgia.
When I asked him how he develops his unique flavor combinations such as white chocolate with lime and muscovado sugar, or milk chocolate with honey and blueberries, or dark chocolate with lemon and Ethopian coffee, he told me that ever since childhood he’s had the ability to remember smells and to combine them in his mind with other smells.
His olfactory creativity plus his skills as a professional chef and chocolatier come together magnificently in his brand Chocolatasm.
To taste Chef Paul’s delicious creations is to experience a gentle and pure poetry of chocolate and other flavors. His chocolate doesn’t overwhelm, it delights. Chocolatasm is available at beloved upscale lunch spot and market Foodease inside Chicago’s Water Tower Place (a popular Chicago Chocolate Tours spot back when I operated the original Chocolate Tours as founder/CEO), and I’m thrilled to have brokered the relationship between such a special brand of artisan chocolate, and such a fabulous seller of artisan foods.
For a peek behind the scenes, enjoy this Chocolatasm video.
Keep eating chocolate!
Come see me on Instagram too! Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck, The Chocolate Queen
CEO/Founder Chocolate Uplift
www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com
chocolateuplift@gmail.com
Social media: @chocolateuplift
The Community of Chocolate: Cocoa + Co.
by Valerie Beck
When people ask me where to find bean-to-bar chocolate, or slavery-free / ethical chocolate, there’s a new store I now add to the list: Cocoa + Co. in Chicago.
People also often ask me for a good chocolate cafe or coffee shop in Chicago, and I add Cocoa + Co. to that list too.
And, when people ask me how to tell if a chocolate bar comes from ethical sources, I give them the answer – below.
But first, imagine a chocolate shop where you can support the community of fair trade and direct trade cacao growers, support the community of artisan chocolate makers and chefs, and enjoy your own community of friends while enjoying some of the finest chocolate brands in the world. Such are the glories at Cocoa + Co.!
Store owner Kim Hack carries some of my favorite bean-to-bar chocolate brands, such as Dick Taylor and Original Beans. I’ve also found new favorites through her, such as Marou and Omnom, which I’d followed on Instagram and finally tasted and fell in love with after buying them at Kim’s shop!
Kim also brings in fresh local pastry and bonbons, has space for private chocolate tasting parties, serves luscious drinking chocolate, and has a well-curated chocolate grocery and cookbook selection.
These are wonderful components of the community of chocolate, wouldn’t you agree!
Back to our question of how to tell if the chocolate bar in your hand comes from ethical sources: read the label for what it says, and for what it doesn’t say.
That is: look first for the origin. If you see a country or an estate of origin listed, chances are already high you’re holding a bar of ethical chocolate. Just as a bottle of wine or bag of coffee tells you what country or estate the product comes from, an ethical chocolate bar will tell you that too. The label might say Peru, or Madagascar, or the Camino Verde Estate in Ecuador which I visited last year, or another location, so that you’ll know the source of the cacao that went into making the chocolate.
You can also look for a fair trade symbol, but there are multiple certifications and an ethical cacao farm may or may not have them.
Now look for what the label doesn’t say: if no origin is listed, you can be relatively sure the cocoa beans came from West Africa, which produces over 60% of the world’s chocolate, and which does so with a scarred supply chain often involving diseased cacao trees, poor flavor bulk cacao, and even child slave labor. This is the supply chain of the big chocolate manufacturers who sell in grocery stores and advertise on TV. And this is why I’m organizing a Chocolate Freedom Walk, to raise awareness of where our chocolate comes from, and to promote ethical chocolate with fun tastings and giveaways at my speaking engagements and along the route.
Ethical cacao is not only ethical, it tastes infinitely better, gives you various flavors such as earthy or fruity based on the soil (terroir) and the art of the chocolate maker, needs no artificial ingredients, and gives you the health benefits that you’ve heard about. And it includes you in the sweet chocolate community of growers, makers, and enjoyers, which you can also join at Cocoa + Co.
Onward and upward!
Your friend in chocolate,
Valerie
Valerie Beck
Chocolate Expert, Sweet Speaker, Chocolate Consultant
www.valeriebeckchocolateuplift.com
chocolateuplift@gmail.com
Chocolate Uplift 