Chocolate & Beer

Come join us on February 6th for a classic but underexplored combination! Tickets and more information here...

Puerto Plata bars for Haiti

We here at Bittersweet want to do our part to help the people of Haiti. Our own Bittersweet Origins Puerto Plata Bar comes from the Dominican Republic and that is why, starting tomorrow and for the next week, we are donating all of the profits from the sales of that bar, both 65% & 75%, to the International Rescue Committee's Haiti Rescue Fund.

The International Rescue Committee has deployed its Emergency Response Team to Haiti to deliver help to the devastated city of Port-au-Prince. Their team includes experts in emergency health, shelter, and children’s welfare. They will be working with local aid groups to provide vital help to survivors of the massive earthquake that struck Haiti January 12. Meanwhile, the IRC has committed to raising $5 million for reconstruction work in Haiti over the next year.

Please help us help others in their greatest time of need.

Holiday Gift Ideas

If you're looking to get the early jump on holiday gift ideas for your office or family, check out this list of possibilities from Bittersweet! (PDF file)

They're guaranteed to love it!

A Chocolate Evening at SF Conservatory of Flowers

Our own Seneca Klassen, who spent the summer planting his own Cacao Plantation in Oahu, Hawaii, will be speaking at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park Thursday, September 17th, from 6-7:30 PM.

Please join Seneca as he shares information about the botany and cultural history of chocolate. You’ll also experience a “behind the scenes” visit to a hidden treasure – a fruiting cacao tree in a Conservatory greenhouse. And then… you’ll enjoy tasting of 5 origin chocolates while gaining an understanding about the importance of post-harvest processing and quality finishing.

This is part of a Chocolate Event that they are hosting as an Evening of Chocolate. You can visit the Conservatory site to learn more and purchase tickets. Space is limited.

Chocolate Coconut Chill is back!

That's right--the Chocolate Coconut Chill is back in rotation for the season. This luscious combination of young coconut juice, dark chocolate and vanilla--delicious, exotic, vegan and perfect for a warm afternoon. Come on by and pick one up today...

Herrania

On a recent origin trip, we came across a collection of Herrania, a cousin of cacao with quite stunning flowers. Unlike Theobroma family members like Grandiflorum (Cupuaçu) and Bicolor (Pataste/Pataxte), we're not aware of any food use of Herrania, but it was a site to behold nonetheless, as you can see from the photos below.

What to plant? What to value?

As the craft chocolate marketplace continues to develop from the demand side, we can increasingly see a critical need to engage cacao farmers (and whole farming communities) in the idea that we as chocolate makers and consumers are ready and interested in valuing their crops based more on their overall quality than their sheer quantity.

This seemingly simple change in perspective will in fact take substantial time and effort to get into place, and as we read further into the collective past of cacao cultivation, it's very clear that questions of yield versus flavor (and other related dichotomies) have been with us for at least 150 years or so.

As new origins are planted and established regions are revitalized with an eye to this new higher-value chocolate market, it's an exciting time to engage in what turns out to be a very long conversation with cacao about what we want from it--and what it wants from us as well.