About

ABOUT
THE COCOA FORGE

Stoneground, bean-to-bar, artisan chocolate ~ crafted locally
of heirloom and fine-flavor cacao varietals;
direct-sourced from vigilant farmers around the equator.

Responsibly Farmed

Reverently Processed

Respectfully Presented

The Adventure Begins

Adventure statement: Seek out the world's most extraordinary, rare and exquisite responsibly grown cacao, direct-sourced from smallholder farms around the equator. Reverently craft this "food of the gods" into the purest form of chocolate possible. Respectfully present it with candid frankness and transparency.

The Cocoa Forge is a small factory crafting stoneground, bean-to-bar chocolate
with rare heirloom and fine flavor cacao.
First, I should define a couple things: a chocolatier is someone who sources their preferred chocolate and makes wonderful sweets with it like truffles and confections. A chocolate maker, particularly one identifying themselves as "bean-to-bar", sources cocoa beans (AKA cacao) around the equator then takes it through all the steps to becoming chocolate: sourcing, evaluating, testing, shipping, sorting, roasting, cracking, winnowing, grinding, refining, conching, tempering, moulding, wrapping and packaging. At The Cocoa Forge, the chocolate making process is even further nuanced and specialized - all of my chocolate is made from "heirloom" (less than 1% of all the beans grown in the world) and "fine-flavor" beans (about 5 to 7% of the worlds harvest) sourced from responsible small-holder farmers and cooperatives in micro-lots. All of my chocolate is slowly stone-ground, minimally refined and minimally sweetened resulting in intense, flavorful chocolate that has its personality and particular uniqueness to its origin and varietal left intact. This is as close as I can get to when chocolate was considered truly special.
Before commercialization, chocolate was thought to be more precious than gold; and in fact used as currency (still is in remote areas). It was used to pay taxes and tributes to the heads of state. It was present at every birth, death and wedding ceremony. Wars were fought over prime growing lands. The cocoa pod and chocolate made from its seeds so resembled the human heart and human blood and they were publicly used as symbolic religious offerings and in homes and places of worship, placed upon the altars. Traveling merchants carried cocoa beans on their backs for thousands of miles - it has been found in the tombs of kings and royalty as far away as Pueblo Bonito. Cool beans, right?

The chocolate pool is vast. It is deep, dark and mysterious.
Are you ready to jump into the deep end?

The Cocoa Forge is an artisan, micro-batch chocolate factory crafting rare heirloom and fine-flavor cacao varietals into stoneground, bean-to-bar chocolate.

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