Can you identify what I’m showing in this picture?  Click for a larger version of the picture.  Post in the comments.  If you can’t guess, I’ll put up some hints later, but I bet some of you will know right away.  I’ll be putting up more pictures later on this week.

Wikipedia tells me that Theobroma, the “food of the gods”, is a small genus of plants native to Central and South American tropical forests. The one species we all are familiar with is the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao. After growing for at least four or five years, this tree produces fruit (pods) with seeds (cocoa beans) that are fermented, dried, and then finally roasted to develop the flavors we associate with chocolate. In an average year, an average tree will only produce enough seeds to make about 4.4 pounds of chocolate. According to the World Atlas of Chocolate, Americans consume over 11 pounds of chocolate per year.

Most people don’t think too much about the chocolate they eat. After all, you can get pounds of the stuff in the checkout lane in every grocery store. There’s a difference, though, between chocolate and candy. While many still cling to the overly-sweet candy put out by so many huge manufacturers, the purists are finding more and more high-quality bars available.

Chocolate has progressed in this country to something that, for some people, is like learning about wines. Different regions of the world have different climates, they may grow different cacao varieties (there are 3 main varieties), the beans may be processed differently. All of these things may bring out a different character in the cacao. More companies are now making “single origin” bars, sourcing beans from a single source instead of blending from a wider range.

You may have noticed bars with cacao percentages, indicating the ratio of cocoa solids in them. They can go from 0% (white chocolate) to 100% (baking chocolate). Other than cocoa solids, chocolate bars should only contain a few other ingredients: sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla, and milk solids for milk chocolate. Personally, I like dark chocolate. My usual choices are in the 62-74% cacao range.

No cacao grows in the USA, but across the country, there are a number of companies making “bean-to-bar” chocolate. Many companies will just buy chocolate, maybe add some flavorings, and then pour it into their own molds. There’s nothing wrong with this, there are plenty of great chocolate makers putting out great products. A very small, but growing, number of people are making chocolate using traditional methods and equipment from single origin chocolate in small batches.

I recently heard about a local guy who was interested in this. His name is Dan Schreiber, and he’s a grad student at the local University. He started a project on Kickstarter, a site where entrepreneurs can go to put out their ideas and get some start-up funds to make them happen. You can visit his project via the link on the right. The basic idea is that he’s asking for start-up funds to purchase the equipment he’ll need to be able to make artisan chocolate.

His goals are modest, to make great chocolate bars by hand and start distributing them locally. From my correspondence with him, his passion for this is clear. Like other local artisans, like Larbo from This Little Piggy, Dan is driven to revive old traditions and make something great. His journey will involve some learning along the way, but as he pointed out to me, even some of the bigger producers of fine chocolate, like Scharffen Berger and Patric Chocolate started out in a kitchen.

One of the benefits to supporting people like Dan is that we build on our local wealth of knowledge. Perhaps in the future, our town will be able to support a kitchen incubator to give food entrepreneurs a way to get their products to market faster. With the numbers of people interested in slow, local, artisanal products around here, I’m sure that will happen eventually.

I would urge everyone interested to click and donate some money to Dan’s project. You can donate as little as $1, but for $10 you will get some free chocolate when it’s ready. Every little bit helps. It may be a while before Dan has perfected his methods and finalized packaging, but I hope to see his products in coffee shops and other stores in the area before too long. My first request beyond a great dark chocolate bar would be something using flavors inspired by Indian cuisine with balance and subtlety.