~ People and process behind specialty cacao and craft chocolate — including some amazing women around the world
Cacao growing, harvesting, and post-harvest steps, by the women and men of COAGRISCAL in Honduras, who prepare the products for woman-owned Good King Cacao [farm to snack]
Cacao collaboration, buying, and transport by woman-owned Askanya Chocolate of Haiti, and chocolate making in Haiti by the women of Askanya [video]
with Kim Wilson of Good King Cacao of Seattle; the products are made with Honduras cacaowith Corinne Joachim Sanon Symietz (right) of Askanya Chocolate of Haitiwith Lan Phan of 9th & Larkin Chocolate of San Francisco (front), her husband Brian (left), and Simran Bindra of Kokoa Kamili cacao of Tanzania[photo from dieline] craft……chocolatewith Kate McAleer of Bixby Chocolate, who is both a chocolate maker and a chocolatier[Photo from Mark Gerrits of OBOLO Chocolate]bean to barbean to cup
~ Purpose-driven businesses — from Chicago Chocolate Tours to Chocolate Uplift, consulting to and distributing other purpose-driven brands
from ancient tradition to…
…contemporary social impact
chocolate chooses us!
cacao and chocolate as portals forward to a Golden Age of empathy and equality, nourishing people and planet
Belu Cacao before and after, and Belu from tree to bar [video]Developed 3 sizes of Belu, each with 2 ingredients: cacao and sugar — all you need!with Emily of Belu Cacao and her husbandCarlos
~ Purity of craft chocolate — tasting techniques to perceive and enjoy nuance
mindfulness: look, sniff, taste
also: listen, touch, think
breathe
repeat!
Yes: I ate the whole thing. In 2 sittings, but I did it!And it was made with Askanya Chocolate of Haiti, at The Vig Chicago. What’s in your restaurant’s dessert?
~ Power of people and planet — recognizing ethical chocolate, which means it is free of human rights abuses and environmental harm
Tip: all of the big brands are complicit in human rights abuses and environmental harm; they don’t deny it
Tip: look for small brands, then look on the label for the cacao country of origin, and a clean ingredients list
Tip: the best chocolate (wine, coffee, diamonds, silk scarves) is not usually found at a standard grocery store, but use the 2 points above to discover any exceptions
More on classmate David Coale’s podcast where I talk about ethical chocolate and our power of choice
Chocolate is love. Taste is memory. What is your earliest memory of tasting and loving chocolate?
~ And, after all those Ps, my 5 Ss of first-class craft chocolate:
slavery-free
soy-free / industrial additive-free
sustainable / soil-regenerative
small-batch
scrumptious!
Golden Age Cookies: organic oatmeal salted craft chocolate chunk cookies topped with cacao nibs; I created them because I wanted to eat them
**Update 12/16/2020: What a fun, fascinating, and delicious chocolate tasting we had today via video conference! Thank you for your awesome participation, or for visiting this page even if you didn’t have the chance to join the call!
As promised, here are links to shop the craft chocolate bars from the different sets, plus links to retailers who buy wholesale from me and where you can find multiple craft chocolate brands including many of the below; please note that not all bars are available in all countries at the current time:
Brands in our sets
9th & Larkin Chocolate of San Francisco, woman-owned, Lan puts her husband to work roasting cacao sometimes
Baiani Chocolates of Brazil, wife/husband-owned, wife Juliana is the chocolate maker
Crow & Moss Chocolate of Michigan, husband is chocolate maker, wife does their graphic design
Yahara Chocolate of Wisconsin, possibly the most extensive selection of craft chocolate anywhere
Please tell any of the brands or retailers I sent you!
I’d love to hear what you choose or what your favorites were from your set, or your thoughts on Nestle and Cargill v Doe, or thoughts or questions on anything else.
Thank you!
Valerie
chocolateuplift@gmail.com
Feel free to follow me or say hi on Instagram at @chocolateuplift!
**
Hello!
I am excited and thankful for a special virtual chocolate tasting for the Harvard Law School Women’s Alliance, with my sister alumnae!
Below is the welcome letter going out with the craft chocolate tasting kits, and below that is information on the chocolate bars in the kits, and on how to recognize ethical chocolate, as well as updates on Nestle and Cargill v. Doe, a case about child slave labor in Big Chocolate brands in which the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments earlier this month.
Hello and welcome to our virtual chocolate tasting!
The craft chocolate bars I’ve selected are enclosed, and we’re going to have a fun, fascinating, and delicious time!
Here is our plan:
1. Anticipation: Please don’t eat the chocolate yet! (Step 1 is the hardest!) We can taste it together during the Final 2020 Chapters Call:
Date: Wednesday, December 16
Time: 10:15 AM (PDT) / 1:15 PM (EDT) to 11:30 AM (PDT) / 2:30 PM (EDT)
Dial-in: Details to arrive electronically
2. Storage: I recommend storing your chocolate in a cool, dry place, and not in the refrigerator where the moisture can cause the chocolate to “bloom,” or develop chalkiness.
3. Tasting: During the call, I’ll walk us through a guided tasting so that we can talk about the history and health benefits of chocolate, how to recognize ethical chocolate, and a related recent Supreme Court case, and so that we can simply enjoy craft chocolate and a festive gathering!
For more information in advance about the chocolate bars in your kit and on craft chocolate in general — such as about my 5 Ss of first-class chocolate: slavery-free, soy-free, sustainable, small-batch, and scrumptious — please see www.chocolateuplift.com/hlswa.
I look forward to our virtual chocolate tasting, and am grateful to HLSWA for hosting this special event!
P.S. Here is my favorite Aztec-inspired hot chocolate recipe; feel free to sip during our presentation:
4 tablespoons drinking chocolate mix or finely chopped chocolate bar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon orange zest
Whisk dry ingredients with up to 1 cup hot water or your favorite milk, top with orange zest, and enjoy!
*****
Cacao pod from Ecuador
Ethical Chocolate
Commercial chocolate / big-brand chocolate comes from a supply chain with child labor, forced labor, and deforestation and other environmental degradations.
How to recognize and choose craft chocolate instead, which nourishes people and planet?
Look for my 5 Ss of first-class chocolate:
*slavery-free — Look for the cacao country of origin on the label. If you see none, chances are you have non-traceable bulk cacao, which comes from tainted supply chains.
*soy-free — Look for the presence or absence of soy lecithin or other processed ingredients on the label. These indicate industrial chocolate and also have negative health effects.
*sustainable — Does the brand tell you about the cacao they sourced, and about their packaging?
*small-batch — The big brands are all complicit in child labor, farmer poverty, deforestation, and overuse of chemical pesticides. Look for small brands making a difference.
*scrumptious! — Chocolate is about enjoyment!
Cacao nibsIn the grinderChocolate goes with everything!
*****
Tasting kits for our HLSWA virtual event
Chocolate bars in most US Mainland tasting kits:
@crowandmosschocolate Bolivian Rose Salt chocolate bar, made from Colombian cacao plus cane sugar, with a gentle sprinkling of Bolivian pink salt. This fruit-forward bar reminds me of childhood visits to Michigan, where my mom spent part of her childhood on a small family farm!
@dicktaylorchocolate Brazil, made in Eureka, California, is sophisticated and rich, and reminds me of the years I lived in Europe, where the idea to create the world’s first chocolate tours came to me, as a chocolate-obsessed exchange student in Paris in 1989!
@xocolatlchocolate Kissed Mermaids, made in Atlanta, is light, bright, and topped with cacao nibs, and you know how excited I get about cacao nibs, and about blue and white! A cheerful bar! Plus, this is the first batch on Uganda cacao (instead of Costa Rica), grown by the Semuliki Forest collective of around 1,000 family farmers, and I love the rich notes of warm spice on a core note of straight-ahead chocolate!
Alternate bar in NY/NJ kits:
Chocolate bars in a San Francisco tasting kit:
Photo by 9th & Larkin Chocolate
Craft chocolate brand in Hawaii tasting kit:
Photo by Manoa Chocolate
Craft chocolate brand in Brazil tasting kit:
Craft chocolate brand in Europe tasting kits:
Craft chocolate brand in South Africa tasting kit:
A selection of women-made or -led ethical chocolate brands
What a blast to give a zoom presentation for an amazing group of my Harvard College women classmates today about *Women Entrepreneurs Making Social Impact,* and to share my journey and mission of Uplift Through Chocolate!
Here is the link to my slides; be sure to open them all the way to see the information and links in the Notes sections! Enjoy, and scroll down this page for online shopping links to woman-owned retailers and woman-owned or -led brands!
We are Harvard and proud: outside my former dorm Stoughton (left in photo) a couple of years ago for Convocation. Here are the slides to my talk today for Harvard women classmates.
We are celebrating the 100-year anniversary of women’s right to vote here in the US, and I applaud my classmates who organized a video chat series for us featuring stories of women’s activism! Our college reunion next month was canceled due to the coronavirus situation (stay well, and keep perspective: 11 million people die each year from poor diet — including from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes caused by eating industrial Big Food — that’s 1 in 5 deaths globally and that’s 50 times more than have died from covid-19, so why haven’t we shut down Big Food and the outlets like Amazon that sell it?), and we are moving forward with our own events, virtually!
I gathered beautiful and delicious craft chocolate bars shown here from woman-owned or -led brands, to wave around on-screen, along with the fascinating book 1491 (click for a related article by the book’s author in The Atlantic) about life in the Americas before Columbus — we can learn a lot from the societies of indigenous people, like the one that had a grandmothers council of wise women to approve or reject political plans — which includes information about the role of cacao and chocolate.
Good King snacking cacao of Honduras and Indonesia by way of Seattle
Most of the women chocolate makers and retailers I spoke with the other day in preparation for my presentation basically said the same thing: any income still coming in goes to their employees during these days of virus pandemonium. So whether you shop with a retailer or directly with a brand, you are helping their (mostly women) employees!
A selection of woman-made in-country chocolate: the chocolate bars were made in the same country where the cacao was grown, which means more profit and pride for local teams than if the cacao were exported without making a finished product
As you may know, my business Chocolate Uplift generally doesn’t sell chocolate to the public since closing the subscription box part of the business; instead, I sell and distribute craft chocolate bars like the ones listed above wholesale to retailers like the ones listed above, and also provide consulting services to chocolate makers and cacao farm owners, and speaking engagements to the public and for meetings and events.
I also operate a free “chocolate-finder” service: if there’s a type of chocolate or a flavor or a brand you want, and you don’t know where to order it, ask me and I’ll find out and tell you!
Thank you, and keep eating real chocolate!
Onward and upward!
Your friend in chocolate, Valerie
Sending you a chocolate hug, as we move toward a world that nourishes people and planet! That’s Uplift Through Chocolate!
Valerie Beck
Founder/CEO Chocolate Uplift
Craft Chocolate Brokering, Consulting, Distribution
Update: here are the slides from my talk on The Full Chocolate: Where Chocolate Comes From and What’s in Your Chocolate, at an exciting and delicious event held August 2, 2019, at amazing Yahara Chocolate in sweet historic Stoughton, Wisconsin! As always, please see the comments section of each slide for the juicy info and video links!
In addition, below are some photos from the event; more are on my Instagram under hashtag #WisconsinAugust2019. Thank you and hope to see you next time!
*****
Hello!
Are you a chocolate lover in the Madison, Wisconsin, area? I’m excited to give a talk on The Full Chocolate — how chocolate goes from bean to bar — with craft chocolate tasting at Yahara Chocolate in Stoughton, WI, Friday 8/2/19 at 7pm, and to host informal tastings there Saturday 8/3/19 from 10am to 3pm!
We’re going to have around 10 different chocolate bars to sample, plus cacao beans, nibs, and pulp! Details are here for Friday, and here for Saturday. Hope to see you there!
Here is some of the scrumptiousness I’m bringing to Yahara Chocolate for dear Brook, the store owner, who is assembling an amazing collection of craft chocolate, wouldn’t you agree!
I’m also bringing the outrageously delicious new Mint Brownie bar by Violet Sky Chocolate; Brook selected it at his daughter’s insistence!
Fun side note: my first-year dorm at Harvard College and the town where Yahara Chocolate is located are both called Stoughton! Here are some photos from my return to Stoughton (the dorm) to serve as a Convocation Marshal and welcome the new first-year students last fall (I brought chocolate to that too, for the new students in my old dorm, and for my alumni friends). It’s all connected!
Meanwhile, see you in Stoughton, Wisconsin, if you’re around!
The head of the Chicago chapter asked if I could speak on chocolate and gender, and in fact this is a topic with interesting historical aspects. For example, would you be surprised to know that Aztec emperor Montezuma drank chocolate before visiting his wives, or that today much of the work on specialty cacao farms that grow some of the best cacao in the world is done by women?
Click here if you’re curious to see slides I shared during our delicious afternoon (my notes or video links to various relevant YouTube videos are in the comments to each slide)!
Chocolate forever, Harvard always, but lawyer no more — I left that career almost 20 years ago, and the blog tells you why. Read at your own risk. Plus: fun vintage photos.
Time travel: “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” #antoinedesaintexupery I’m enjoying stepping back in time in Harvard Yard, where I – and so many before me and after me – spent so much time, and moving forward in time with the relatively new colorful chairs sprinkled about, which encourage people to linger in the Yard and take their time! Of course, we used to sit on the Widener Library steps for community time, and on the Henry Moore sculpture outside Lamont Library, sometimes while eating chocolate, naturally. Such time was very important indeed! #HarvardAutumn2017
What a happy visit to home sweet Harvard, plus Boston and Cambridge sweet spots!
Itinerary:
give a talk at my alma mater Harvard Law School – on alternative careers for lawyers – and connect with students,
scout awesome chocolate nearby,
chat with great local retailers, including some we used to visit on my chocolate tours in Boston,
“Truth never damages a cause that is just.” #Gandhi In the air with Violet Sky Chocolate: this is the lovely brandy barrel aged Monte Grande Guatemala 72% chocolate, from cacao aged in a honey brandy barrel before being refined into chocolate, which I pulled from my bag to make in-flight trail mix! Here’s to truthful, transparent chocolate!
Happy landing at home sweet Harvard, my undergrad and law school alma mater!
Chocolate scouting…
… at Tatte Bakery in Harvard Square …
… across from Widener Library, one of many favorite Harvard spots where I spent a lot of time back when!
Aztec revivalism: Mexican hot chocolate at L.A.Burdick’s in Harvard Sq, an old favorite sip at an old favorite cafe!
New and old: thoroughly exquisute Castronovo Chocolate at #cardullos, a super special #harvardsquare shop I’ve been visiting since freshman year when I would buy the chocolate bars that were available then! What a treat to connect with the new owner of this classic shop, over new chocolate, an ancient delicacy! And yes I took off my scarf and took this picture; standard operating procedure! : )
Brunch recap, at amazing #aldenandharlow in #harvardsquare: loved this fabulous, inventive, and warm cinnamon roll, with berries, pistachios, and white chocolate – plus the cleverly named “ubiquitous kale salad” which was creatively freshened with creamy pistachio dressing, and all the other delicious not-shown food we ate! – while catching up with a very dear friend from college! The restaurant is in the same location as beloved former Casablanca cafe, next to the Brattle Theater which still shows classic and independent films on its single screen; so much fun to go back to school and to old places and old-spaces-turned-new!
Sweet talk: what a treat to speak to students at my alma mater #harvardlawschool on alternative careers for lawyers, at a leadership conference organized by the Harvard Women’s Law Association and Ms. JD! 🏛 My message to these high-achieving super-professional students: follow your passions and goals, not someone else’s. And if your passion is BigLaw, have a back-up passion, because today only 19% of equity partners are women, and they are paid 80% of what the men receive. ⁉️ Entrepreneurship is an exciting alternative, and has been a meaningful and delicious one for me! It was fun and an honor to share war stories from my law firm days, and origin stories of my original chocolate tours business, to chat afterward with such wonderful and thoughtful students about what is on their minds, and to share Chocotenango chocolate bars which were enormously popular!
Harvard Law School – love the addition of picnic tables for community and outdoor studying
Taza Chocolate factory tour – from bean to bar!
Scrumptious Taza souvenir – not shown: all my many other scrumptious Taza souvenirs!
Some of the smaller stone grinders at Taza Chocolate in Somerville, outside of Boston, home of stone-ground sustainable slavery-free soy-free chocolate!
Chocolate love at Taza HQ
Macaron Cafe now available at Gourmet Boutique in Boston, former chocolate tour stop
Chequessett Chocolate available at Beacon Hill Chocolates, down the hill from where I lived during law school
Chocolate scouting in Boston’s Copley Square; chocolate tour guests used to pose on the steps of the Boston Public Library in between chocolate stops!
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” #Thoreau I’ve passed every season here, multiple times, and it’s always fresh to be back, to be forward! #HarvardAutumn2017
I always travel with homemade chocolate trail mix – glamour mix!
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” #Emerson And every night! From home sweet Harvard, back to sweet home Chicago!
November 2014 marks the 9th anniversary of my chocolate services business. The dream that led me here started more years ago than that, when I was in college. Here’s the essay I wrote for my college reunion book this coming spring, describing the chain of events.
Quincy House at Harvard, where I woke up with a special dream
One day toward the end of our junior year at Harvard, I woke up thinking of Paris. The thought stayed with me, indeed it permeated me, and I decided to spend the next semester in Paris.
As you’ll recall, studying abroad wasn’t common in those days. My roommates had no reason to expect I’d abandon them. Professors raised an eyebrow when signing a form stating that my Sorbonne courses would give me the same credit as Harvard courses. No one knew what to make of my announcement that I was going to study in Paris. I didn’t know what to make of it either. I loved being at Harvard. I only knew that Paris was calling, and I had to answer.
Debauve et Gallais, the Paris chocolate shop where I tasted the bonbon that changed my life
My semester in Paris was transformative. I loved the lifestyle, the history, my classes, the soft lavender early morning air, and the chocolate. Above all, the chocolate. I had been a chocolate maniac all my life: at age four I declared to my mother that the only way I was going to drink milk was if it were chocolate.
I can still taste in my mind the first piece of fine French chocolate I had during my semester in Paris. I had gone “chocolate scouting” – as normal a thing for me to do as finding my classes, the bookstores, and the Seine – and I selected a square of ganache at the great French chocolate house Debauve et Gallais. The richness, power, and purity of flavor in that tiny, perfect bonbon made me determined to enjoy chocolate of exalted quality for the rest of my life, and to take others with me on the journey of fine chocolate.
I began immediately. I asked a few Sorbonne friends if they wanted to come with me and sample the best chocolate and pastries in Paris. They looked at me for a moment as though I had invited them on a tour of paradise, which in fact I had. They said yes, and off we went on the first chocolate tour that I created. I didn’t call it a tour, or imagine that I would grow the concept into an international chocolate tourism and chocolate services business. I was simply sharing my passion.
Pralinette Chocolates Bruges
After we had eaten our way through the truffles and chocolate croissants of Paris, I decided we needed to go to Belgium and do the same thing. And we did. We celebrated my 20th birthday in the glorious chocolate shops of Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges and Ghent, during a weekend in December of our senior year. Thus took place the first chocolate travel club trip that I created; I didn’t imagine that there would be more.
Today, after a not atypical career diversion into the practice of law, and some additional time in the chocolate and pastry centers of Europe, my passion, mission, and career are one: “uplift through chocolate.” I founded a business 9 years ago which was the first chocolate tour company, then I expanded into multiple cities, and now the company has grown to provide chocolate services such as tours, travel, and “Eat Chocolate, Be Skinny” wellness seminars for the chocolate-loving public, and consulting and importing for professional chefs and chocolatiers as well as for cocoa-growing and chocolate-producing nations.
The next step is to continue the current chocolate revolution by ending the child slave labor practices and other monstrous abuses that occur behind 70% of the world’s chocolate, and by replacing slavery chocolate with delicious fair trade chocolate for the public and culinary professionals. Chocolate can uplift chocolate lovers, chocolate workers, cocoa growing nations, and the planet. For irregularly-timed posts chronicling some of this journey, you can join me on my blog at http://www.chocolateuplift.com.
As a 19-year-old Harvard senior in Paris, where I created the first chocolate tour
I’m grateful it all flowed from a thought I woke up with when we were at Harvard.
Chocolate Uplift 