The first day that we arrived in Piura, we had the opportunity to meet with the farmers association. Nobody else spoke a word of English, other than my current contact. My Spanish is poor at best. I did my best to introduce myself to the group. Next, they went around and introduced themselves. Only one of the board members was a farmer. He introduced himself and told me he had a cacao farm.  I tried to speak a bit with him and ask about his farm. He immediately invited me to visit him on his farm. Well, how often does a cacao farmer in Peru invite you to visit his farm? So, I responded "Yes, of course!". I asked where his farm was. It turned out it was a two hour drive away. He seemed surprised that I was so quick to respond, but the decision was made. We would go the following day. At this point, the plot get's a bit thicker. Yes, it turned out that the town he lived by was a two hour bus ride away, however he was an additional one hour car ride away from there in the mountains at about 3,000 feet. He seemed concerned that I spoke almost no Spanish and he no English, but I assured him that all would be fine.  We would leave the next morning early, arrive and look at the farm, stay the night at his house, and then return the following day. He didn't seem to  believe we were coming. He looked at my face as if he were trying to see if I was just saying yes only to not arrive. He was heading to buy the tickets that day, but wanted to be sure.  I assured him that there was no problem, that would be there at 8. We shook hands as I left the building. The following morning, we arrived at the bus station at 8. Don Francisco was there and our contact was helping to translate a bit. Don Francisco was now wondering if it would be alright if we needed to stay another day. It turned out the one hour drive from the town was through torturous back roads that were impassable if it happened to rain. We might have to stay the night in town and get the the farm the following day. At the thought of being an hour car ride into the mountains unable to return in case of rain, my sense of  reason kicked in a bit. Fortunately, I am adept at suppressing such reasoning. The bus ride went off without a hitch. We arrived in town and promptly found a car to give us a ride into the mountains. After a harrowing hour and a half of driving, we arrived at Don Francisco's house. A house with mud walls and floor, with two bedrooms, a kitchen with a cuy(guinea pig) pen adjoined by a small portal on the base of the wall, and a porch with two fermentation boxes right out front. We headed right out to the farm, which is watered by a large mountain stream. Francisco's farm was a dense jungle of cacao. Many trees are over 40 years old. Most of them were not pruned or weeded, but remarkably productive despite this. This is especially surprising, because cacao does not generally do well at all at altitude. Yet, here we were in the foothills of the Andes by the Ecuadorian border looking at these beautiful old cacao trees. We met Francisco's wife out in the farm, who was working with their son and a farmhand to prepare seedlings to expand their cacao production. After an exhausting 2 hour journey through his farm, we headed back to the house. The rest of the evening we spent with Francisco and his family. We had dinner with them. We talked about the U.S. a bit. But mostly, we talked about cacao. Because of the prices that the cacao of this area are beginning to command, cacao is one of their most profitable crops. I cannot express how important this is in the development of sustainability in fine cacao. Francisco, among other farmers is growing cacao, not because he has to, but because he wants to grow it and sees a future in it. This is just not the case in many other countries. At one point, he asked me how much cacao I had bought in the last year from Piura. When I told him, he was pretty severely dismayed. It is a remarkable challenge to balance the priorities of improving the quality of life of farmers with producing fine chocolate at such a small scale. At Rogue Chocolatier, we are constantly thinking about how to balance the two. Unfortunately, the world is a complicated place where there are rarely easy fixes for these problems. As we continue to grow, one of our main goals is to positively affect the quality of life for farmers, but also the quality of their work. We fired up a gas generator for light that night. We sat with Francisco as he looked through a new calender he had received with pictures of farmers from other parts or Peru. I think what we saw was genuine pride that he was in the company of those he saw in the pictures. Time moves even slower in the country, but eventually we made it to sleep. The next morning, we awoke to the various sounds that one does on a farm in the countryside: Burros with their ear piercing baying, roosters' with their incessant pronouncements, pigs fighting over their morning meals, and birds from the jungle nearby. We had breakfast and then went back out on the farm. Everyone sat down up on the hill. Francisco's wife began milking the cows for cheese that she makes and sells to the neighbors, Francisco cropped a stalk of sugar cane and began whittling off pieces and handing them to us, then, after a while, we headed back up to another part of the farm to see more trees. Francisco kept pointing out that it was important for farmers like himself to know producers like us and for us to visit them. He told me that we were welcome anytime, that we had a second home with him. I hope to evaluate a bunch of samples of cacao from different parts of Piura after I return, but the one I am most excited to try is that from Don Francisco's farm in the mountains.[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

After a few days in Ecuador, we are finally in Piura! The first day we got back here, we headed straight to the cooperative to do some cacao liquor tasting. As soon as we finished, I asked the managers if there was time to make it to Juan Tirado's farm that day. They looked at me a like I was crazy, but agreed. So, we headed to the farm.  When we arrived in town, Juan was there waiting, as he had heard we were coming. I promptly gave him the box of Piura bars I had been terrified would be seized by customs  while going back and forth through Peru and Ecuador. He was so excited. Everyone in town told me that he'd saved the package from the last bar I'd brought and showed it to everyone who visited him. The only problem we discovered upon arrival was that there was no way to get to Juan's farm by car, because the rainy season had made the river impassable by car. The only option was to take a cable car over the river that was pulled across by several teenagers who had been swimming nearby, followed by a half hour walk. Not to be swayed by such things, we went across and visited his farm once again. On the way back, we made sure to visit the fermentation and drying facility in town. I cannot express the joy it is to see good fermentation and drying practices after visiting so many facilities that just don't take to time or care to do things right.[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

Just a few quick pictures. We're in Ecuador for a few days trying to learn about Ecuadorian cacao and  the farming and post-harvest practices here. We spent about 8 hours driving yesterday from Guayaquil to a small buying station in Los Rios province. Our guide drove maniacally at between 90-100mph en route while swerving and weaving through cars and "lanes"! Unfortunately, it was so rainy that we didn't have much of a chance to tour farms here. We did have an opportunity to see some processing and buying stations and to see some of the old trees on one of the farms of the area. The politics of cacao in Ecuador are complex and the challenges involved in getting cacao processed correctly are a bit daunting. I will hopefully have an opportunity to speak to some of these challenges in a future post. Today we head to a major exporter to do a cocoa liquor sample tasting. Tomorrow, back to Lima and then Piura! Stay tuned! [gallery link="file" columns="2"]

I have just returned from the Good Food Awards in San Francisco, CA. I am so pleased to announce that the Sambirano bar, made with cacao from a single family-owned estate in Madagascar, was a winner of the 2010 Good Food Awards! The bar was up against about 180 entries for the chocolate category alone. The judges included some of the best known names in the industry. Even more amazing, it was a blind taste test! I am so honored to have been given this award for many reasons. The award ceremony featured a keynote speech by none other than Alice Waters herself. I had the chance to meet many big names in the food world that have been extremely influential in how we approach our food today. The following day, Rogue Chocolatier was given the opportunity to sell at the Ferry Building Farmers Market, where we were greeted by throngs of excited foodies. I cannot explain how energizing this experience was, nor the depth of my gratitude to be an award winner. To celebrate, I will be offering free shipping on all web orders over $20 for the remainder of January! Here's your chance to taste the bars that everyone is talking about! Please, if you get a chance, click onto the Good Food Awards website and check out the amazing foods that were involved with this project.

The Piura bar has been a fantastic success. Everyone who has tried it has been amazed at how delicious the cacao underlying this bar tastes. It's clean, mild, complex, and unique. It has received accolades and coverage in the local press from Metro Magazine and Minnesota Monthly. I feel bittersweet in announcing that we have just a few bars left, and the retail bars are sold out! I had the remarkable opportunity to bring the Piura bar back to Juan Tirado's farm this past summer. He is the farmer from whom I bought the Piura cacao beans. He was extremely pleased to taste a chocolate made with cacao from his farm, and taken aback by my enthusiasm after reading the insert enclosed with the bar. There are no chocolates that I am aware of that offer this level of depth in honoring the individual farmer that was responsible for the cacao for a particular bar. His farm is unique. I had never seen anything like it. His cacao orchard is essentially in the middle of the desert! Upon arrival in Piura I insisted that we had to immediately head to see him. I was traveling with Art Pollard, Maricel Prescilla, and Alan McClure as a part of a government sponsored trip to Peru, in conjunction with their first "Salon de Cacao y Chocolate" to promote Peruvian cacao and chocolate. We drove through the arid landscape of Piura, crossed a small river in our 4x4 and whipped around curves on a very narrow small dirt road skirted by wooden stick fencing.. After the dust had cleared, we stood at the entrance to Juan Tirado's farm. One must first understand that essentially ALL cacao grows in tropical jungle type climates and areas. Only through savvy irrigation have they been able to grow cacao in this area. That is not to say that cacao is a brand new arrival to the region; Juan Tirado's trees are at least 30 years old. The trees are grown from seed, and therefore lack the characteristic fork of hybrid plantings and grafts. We walked around and looked at the diversity of trees on the farm, as well as examining his pruning practices. Finally, we met with two men who regularly work his farm. We had arrived just at the right time as they had a big pile of freshly harvested pods and were in the process of pulling the 'baba', or wet cacao, out of the pods! I promptly gave both of them a sample of the chocolate. I can only infer from the look on their faces that this moment was an epiphany. Most farmers will never taste chocolate made from cacao that they grow. To say the least, they were pleased with the result. [gallery link="file" columns="2"] We then headed to the fermentary and drying station. Fermentation and drying are such crucial aspects of the supply chain that I really wanted to see this in process. Though their setup is quite rudimentary, they are able to do a fantastic job with processing cacao. I evaluated their process and am working with them to try to further improve the quality and consistency. As I bid farewell, I made one promise to Juan that day. He asked that I bring him more chocolate. I promised I would find some way. To that end, I will be heading back to Peru next month to try to secure another small quantity of cacao for this year, and, of course, to bring the last of the bars back to Juan Tirado himself. Needless to say, I am looking forward to doing both these things!

With continued growth in production, our tiny factory is bursting at the seams. For this we are not complaining, but needing to increase our space and purchase better machinery. I have finally sold a couple of antique machines that I had been hoping to rebuild for a few years. This has provided a small amount of capital that I am using to purchase a small state of the art conche, and to relocate the company to a new facility. This move will allow us space to install several innovative machines that I have been hoping to build for a few years. The end goal is not just to increase production, but to improve quality and allow us to better meet the demand for our chocolate buyers. Right now we are in a state of constant back order, so a requirement of the business is to make sure we are able to keep our stores stocked with chocolate. In doing this, our attention to detail and our obsession with quality will not falter. In fact, with these new machines, I will be able to apply all that I have learned so far to make better, more delicious chocolate. To all of you who have supported Rogue Chocolatier I give my sincere appreciation. Without your continued support we would not be moving forward into this new chapter.

Some shots of myself working in the Letterpress shop, creating the packaging for the new Piura bar. [gallery link="file" columns="2"]

Our new Piura Bar's origin: [gallery link="file" columns="2"]

These are difficult times. No doubt all of you are touched by the remarkable circumstances that life has brought our way. Surely these shifts have changed the daily dynamic of many of your lives. I know that they have mine. Of course, being a chocolate maker is a remarkably frustrating avocation, let alone vocation. With that in mind I have a little hope today, and a lot of gratitude for the people who have been supporting me during these trials. I must say, having chocolate readily on hand helps. New Bar - Rio Caribe With all of that said, I have a couple of bits of great news. I am sending this email out to notify all of you that I have a new bar available! As many of you know I have been working on procuring an origin in Venezuela for 8-9 months now. I was hoping very much to have it out of the country in time for Christmas, but developing countries don't tend to lend themselves to tight scheduling. Unfortunately, while I had initially hoped to bring in a few tons via shipping container there was an issue with Chavez apparently putting a stop on ocean freight. Therefore I have just brought in a half ton via air-freight. As many of you know, this is not cheap. In fact it effectively nearly doubles the cost of the cacao versus ocean freight. In addition, due to the credit market situation at the time of this transaction, I have only been provided Net 30 terms. This is not the best situation, but it is not the worst either. I am very excited to get this cacao in. I think the chocolate is great! This new bar is made with cacao from Rio Caribe. Rio Caribe is a select grade fully fermented Trinitario cacao from the area of the Paria Peninsula in Sucre State. The Paria Peninsula is in far eastern Venezuela and nearly touches Trinidad. This incidentally is also the area where most of the region's oil operations are located. This particular lot is from a single estate, and one of the oldest family-owned cacao businesses in Venezuela. As a matter of fact, I have been told that this is more or less the only exporter that has not been ruined in recent years. I have been in direct contact with the owners for all of these months and am really glad to finally be working with them. We will be the first company in the US to put out a single origin Rio Caribe bar. To the best of my knowledge there is only one other company in the world doing a single origin of this variety (Domori). As with the other current bars, this bar will be a 70%. The flavors of this cocoa are really fun! There are really forward cocoa and coffee flavors, and then deep dairy and nut flavors, hints of dark citrus and spices. This bar is very uncharacteristic of the rest of my current offerings, and that is what I think is so fun about it. Valentine's Day Deals The other good news is that I will be keeping my package deals through Valentines day because they have been so popular. So, this is your last chance to get a really great deal. Nothing says "I love you" like chocolate from Rogue Chocolatier! I want to thank you all again for all of your continued support. I also want everybody to know that I am looking for stores to carry my chocolate. If you have any ideas or suggestions of places near you, please let me know. I love finding fun places with passionate staff that can show new people what I am trying to do. Happy Valentines Day!