Maker Profile: Kallari

For several months now, I've been meaning to write a series of postings highlighting information about each chocolate maker, but it took meeting several of them at the Northwest Chocolate Festival to motivate me to actually start writing. Here is the first of hopefully many to come...

company name	Kallari
website	http://www.kallari.com
email	info.kallari@gmail.com
chocolate maker	Carlos Pozo
factory location	Quito, Ecuador
factory tours	yes
direct online purchase	N/A
direct stores	N/A
retail online purchase	Chocosphere
retail store purchase	Whole Foods Market local cooperative and natural food stores
selling bars since	2005
plantation bars	none
single origin bars	85% Cacao (Ecuador) 75% Cacao (Ecuador) 70% Cacao (Ecuador) Sinchi Supreme 85% (Ecuador)
blend bars	none
other bars	none
production cycle	tree to bar
added fat	cocoa butter from same cacao beans
sweetener	cane sugar
flavoring	whole vanilla bean
emulsifier	none
organic	all bars USDA certified
sustainable	all bars Rainforest Alliance certified
economics	farmer owned profit-sharing among cooperative
last updated	October 27, 2011

Kallari Chocolate is a chocolate maker from Ecuador. As a farming cooperative that produces chocolate bars, Kallari manages the entire production cycle from growing the cacao trees to packaging the final chocolate bars. They sort their beans by hand, keeping the best for themselves and selling the rest to other chocolate companies.

From the back of their chocolate bar wrappers: "We are KALLARI, a cooperative of 850 indigenous Kichwa families in the Upper Napo Region of the Ecuadorian Amazon. We plant, care for, and harvest our award-winning heirloom cacao beans to create this single-source organic chocolate. We share 100% of chocolate profits amongst our 21 rainforest communities to maintain our way of life in one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth."

The motto of Kallari Chocolate is "sustainable pleasure for palate and planet". Kallari's chocolate is certified organic by the USDA. It is also certified by the Rainforest Alliance that it was produced in a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable way.

Kallari makes both couverture and chocolate bars. They use organic cane sugar as a sweetener, add cocoa butter made from their own organic cacao beans, and include organic whole vanilla beans. Kallari does not use an emulsifier in their chocolate. Their chocolate maker is Carlos Pozo. He is also the general coordinator of the Kallari Association and still continues to grow cacao as well!

Because their factory is close to their farms, there is much less delay after the cacao beans are dry before they are processed into chocolate. Kallari currently makes three chocolate bars that vary by the amount of cocoa solids: 70%, 75%, and 85%. They are also in the process of introducing four new hand-tempered bars (which won't be available in the U.S. until later next year).

During the harvest season (January to June), Kallari encourages tours of their farms near Tena and their factory in Quito. Lin-Mar Associates in New York organizes trips that include Kallari tours. The current leased factory in Quito will be replaced next year by a new one they are building in Tena.

Kallari chocolate is available for purchase online at Chocosphere and in stores at Whole Foods Markets and many local cooperative and natural food stores, such as PCC Natural Markets in the Seattle area.

Chocolate Labeling Revisited

Earlier this year I posted about how labeling in chocolate can be inaccurate. At the Northwest Chocolate Festival (NWCF), there was a lot of disappointment with chocolate labeling.

One repeated issue seemed to be the use of the traditional terms of Criollo, Trinitario and Forastero to indicate the type (and implicit quality) of cacao (as I explained in an early blog post about cacao trees).

Multiple presentations at NWCF explained that there is no longer any pure Criollo cacao, and that all quality cacao is now pretty much Trinitario that is closer to Criollo on the spectrum of hybridization between Criollo and Forastero. Some people felt that labeling anything as Criollo is deceptive. It also depends who you ask. As one chocolate maker explained, since Criollo means local and Forastero means foreign, if you ask a farmer if his cacao trees are Criollo or Forastero, he'll look at you as if you're stupid: of course they are Criollo (i.e., local)!

Ten distinct genetic types of cacao have actually been identified, and yet none of those names is used in labeling chocolate. Using the three terms of Criollo, Trinitario, and Forastero is obviously less meaningful.

The other labeling concern at NWCF was the near universal disdain regarding Fair Trade, which typically requires only 5% or so above market prices. Such pricing is insufficient to pay for the higher costs of growing quality cacao. The chocolate makers I spoke with said they paid anywhere from 30% to 400% higher than market prices for their quality beans (sometimes fermented and dried in a manner they requested). One maker cynically suggested that fair trade certifications seemed to be primarily for marketing and for generating money for the certification organizations.

Because much of the quality cacao is grown on many small (e.g., 1 hectare) farms and then the cacao from multiple farms are brought together for fermentation and drying, the cost of certifying those individual farms is too expensive. Many such farms are organic, but they are uncertified. Similarly, chocolate makers are often paying higher than fair trade prices, but aren't certified. Thus, both labels may be lacking on their products. I try to capture this distinction in our reviews and explicitly mention in the text about certifications.

An ideal label for me would include everything from accurate genetics of the cacao to the detailed dates and methods of harvesting and processing it into chocolate -- way too much information for a reasonable consumer. Another piece of information I would like to know is whether or not any added cocoa butter is made from the same cacao beans as the rest of the chocolate (or if a less expensive cocoa butter was used). One member of the audience in a class asked about finding out the percentage of the retail price of a chocolate bar paid to the farmers for their beans.

Beyond ingredients, what information would you want?

Sale: 20% off Valrhona chocolate plus 5 free samples

This week World Wide Chocolate has 20% off Valrhona and Valor chocolate (through October 31st). Use coupon code SPECIAL20 during checkout for this 20% discount.

As a bonus treat during checkout, the first 30 buyers to add "Free Cluizel Chocolate Squares" in the Comments field will receive 5 free bite-size 5 gram chocolate squares of Michel Cluizel chocolate. You do not have to purchase Cluizel chocolate to qualify for the 5 free sample squares.

Since summer is over, they are no longer offering free warm weather packaging or free shipping upgrades.

World Wide Chocolate has some additional promotions available (such as SPECIAL15 for 15% off any combination of Bonnat, Dolphin, and Lake Champlain chocolate totalling $50 or more), but none are especially compelling.

REMINDER: Only one coupon code is allowed per order.

World Wide Chocolate only ships to United States, APO (military), and FPO (diplomatic) addresses. Full information can be found at World Wide Chocolate shipping policies.

Northwest Chocolate Festival summary

There were 5 major areas to the festival: Chocolate Makers, Desserts, Aphrodisiacs, and two lecture rooms. The Chocolate Makers room had 18 makers letting you taste their chocolate and buy their products (most at a discount). The Desserts room had many booths with chocolatiers and others with chocolate-related products, as well as a culinary kitchen with different presentations every hour. The Aphrodisiacs room had several presentations on sensual experiences with chocolate. About half that room was roped off for adults to purchase wine, beer, or spirits, and there were seminars on chocolate drinks and pairing chocolate with other beverages. The two lecture rooms were always busy, with different classes each hour.

Overall, I was impressed by the Northwest Chocolate Festival and by the chocolate makers that attended. The event was focused on artisan chocolate, with a particular emphasis on quality in every step of the process: from tree to bar.

Every chocolate maker I met was passionate about creating the best chocolate they could and was interested in continually improving their craft. Many were new to the field, having started selling chocolate in the past couple of years (and one as recently as this July!) I ended up getting about 50 bars over the course of the weekend (and arranged to have some sent to us), so we'll have many new reviews in the months to come.

I was able to attend the excellent 2-hour keynote panel, as well as eight of the classes over the course of the weekend. Most were introductions to a variety of chocolate topics, such as the farming of cacao, the making of chocolate, and the qualities of chocolate. Many of the classes also used tasting some chocolate as part of the educational experience :) Nearly all of the talks I attended were good; one was great.

Over the course of the next week or so, I'll blog about a few of the themes that were emphasized or subjects that I found particularly interesting, such as labor-intensive farming, CCN51 and cross-pollination, financial disincentives, long term cacao pricing, etc.

Event: Northwest Chocolate Festival is this weekend!

The Northwest Chocolate Festival will be this weekend in Seattle. Tickets are available online until midnight Friday, or you can pay a bit more at the door.

Since my original posting about the festival, three additional chocolate makers have decided to attend: Dandelion, Guittard, and Ritual. Unfortunately, Lillie Belle Farms had to cancel and will no longer be attending.

NWChocolate.com has also posted the weekend schedule, so if you don't want to attend both days, you can decide which day has activities you'd prefer to experience.

Review: Amedei Cru Venezuela

Lindy's Rating: 8.5

Richard's Rating: 8.0

chocolate maker Amedei bar Cru Venezuela region Venezuela plantation (blend) cacao trees Trinitario year (unknown) size 50g ~ 1.8oz cocoa solids 70% added fat cocoa butter sweetener cane sugar emulsifier (none) flavoring vanilla other ingredients (none) list price N/A

color medium brown PANTONE 19-1012 Dark Brown texture smooth with text imprints and scoring, grayish tinge aroma earth, wood, citrus, red fruit, floral, sweet snap hard taste butter, nut (almond, cashew, walnut), roast (cocoa), sweet, spice, fruit (coconut) melt smooth length medium finish slightly sour

Italian chocolate maker Amedei uses cacao beans from individual plantations to make its single origin Cru chocolate bars. Venezuela was made from Trinitario cacao that is genetically more than 85% Criollo (for more information, see our posting about cacao types). The farms from which this cacao was grown are obviously in Venezuela :)

The chocolate was made from 70% cocoa solids, with ingredients of cocoa mass, cane sugar, cocoa butter, and vanilla. The bar was formed in typical Amedei fashion: scored into ten 5-gram pieces, each with an imprint of the Amedei name and some parallel lines. Sealed inside foil-lined yellow paper, the bar was packaged in their slightly textured paper container with coloring indicating a single origin Cru bar: half black and half yellow in front. The best before date on the chocolate we reviewed was 15 April 2012.

The color of Venezuela was a medium brown Dark Brown (PANTONE 19-1012). The surface seemed to have a slight grayish tinge, but no obvious bloom. The bar had a hard snap and revealed aromas of earth, wood, citrus, red fruit, floral, and sweetness.

Butter was the first flavor that both Lindy and I tasted. It was soon followed by nut, roast in the form of cocoa, sweetness and spice. We also both experienced coconut in the taste. The nut flavor was primarily almond, but I also noticed some cashew and walnut.

Venezuela had a smooth melt. The chocolate flavor lasted 25 to 30 seconds after the chocolate was gone, giving it a medium length. The finish left us with a slightly sour aftertaste.

In the U.S., you can purchase Amedei Cru Venezuela online for $7.50 from Chocosphere. In the U.K., you can buy it online for £3.95 from Chocolate Trading Co.

Giveaway: FREE Tickets to the New York Chocolate Show!

We're giving away two free tickets to the 2011 New York Chocolate Show being held at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan from November 10th through 13th. For more information about the event, please see my original posting about it.

To enter this giveaway for free tickets, just send us an email at onegoldenticket@hushmail.com with "Chocolate Show Tickets" as the subject line.

Entry email must be received by midnight PT, October 31, 2011. One entry per person. Winner will be selected at random. Tickets are valid for admission to any single day of the 2011 New York Chocolate Show.

We will need your full name and mailing address to send the tickets. You can include it in your email submission, or we will contact you for this information if your email is selected. In the latter case, you will have 24 hours in which to respond with the information before we contact a replacement winner.

Good luck!