San Juan Estate is located in Gran Couva, in the Montserrat Hills of Trinidad. The estate is one of Trinidad's oldest, and uses traditional methods like grading beans with an antique machine from 1905. In this balanced, chocolatey and creamy bar, Annie finds notes of chicory, honey, and a touch of vanilla at the finish.

These beans com from Tumaco, where Cacao de Colombia and regional producers cooperate to preserve local cacao. Kaija developed a bar profile to highlight the unusual creaminess of these beans. We taste notes of wildflower honey, malted hot cocoa, and whipped cream.

We made this batch from our second bag of Costa Rican beans. Like the first, it has a mild and delicate flavor that reminds us of milk chocolate -- even though it contains no milk. It's sweet and smooth and makes a great introduction to dark chocolate.

The beans in this bar travel to us two days upriver via dugout canoe from the La Mosquitia region of Honduras. Ron made this bar, and he is excited about a San Francisco version of one of our most popular Japanese bars. We taste classic dark chocolate, macadamia nut, and honeycomb.

The beans for this bar come from a collection of farms surrounding the bird sanctuary, Reserva Zorzal. Janelle loved working with our first lot of Dominican beans fermented on the reserve itself. We taste notes of black cherry and caffe breve, with a tannic black jasmine tea finish.

Our Dark Milk Chocolate 52% with Nibs has a crunch with a wild touch.

Organic Grand Cru Hacienda noble Trinatario and Criollo cocoa beans from Hacienda Elvesia, Dominican Republic, made with certified organic ingredients. Fruity aromas, robust tobacco, with a bitter tannic finish.

Tasting notes: Malt, soft ripe fruit, green tea.

Tasting notes: Plumeria/blackberry peach cobbler/espresso.

Hacienda Victoria has an extraordinary vision of cultivating three pure clones of Nacional cocoa, with their extreme elegance and delicate notes of white flowers.

It is a light-colored cacao with unique notes of berries alongwith [sic] a very pleasant sourness. It has a long finish, great sweetness and smoothness.

It is a trinitario-type cacao grown in the Barlovento area of Venezuela. It has notes of dried figs, raisins and cashews with great character, smoothness and finish.

An immediate perception of nuts, almonds above all, followed by honey, vanilla and cream: great sweetness and smoothness.

The father of all Criollos. It is an ancient cacao with notes of white flowers, toffee, cream and extraordinary elegance.

Features nutty, ripe fruit, raisin, tobacco and chlorophyll notes, complemented by a pleasant acidity, a superb roundness and a long-lasting flavour.

Features cashew and honey notes and a sweet, long-lasting flavour.

Notes of red fruits accompanied by a pleasant acidity. Sweet and rounded, great persistence.

Deep, warm flavours with hints of citrus, soft fruit & bananas.

We are excited to be part of the growing community of small batch artisan chocolate makers, producing unique and interesting chocolates with attention and care. This bar represents our efforts to highlight the bright fruit flavors of the prized Ocumare bean.

Discover the aromatic and sweet gentleness of this unique varietal chocolate of great criollo purity, crafted with Canoabo, an extra fine Venezuelan cacao rescued by Case Franceschi, to delight your senses.

Amaze your senses with this diversity of flavors that blends in the smoothness of this extra fine varietal chocolate, crafted with Choroní cacao, an ancestral Criollo variety rescued from Aragua's valleys by Casa Franceschi.

Dark roast, subtle conch
Batch #10-013
Batch size: 365
Created Sept. 6, 2010

Dark roast, medium conch
Batch #10-014
Batch size: 515
Created Sept. 17, 2010

The 214 Story: Madagascar's Sambirano Valley produces some of the most flavorful cacao in the world. Daily harvest from Åkesson's 600 hectare Organic plantation are fermented six days to develop a signature fruitiness. Our light drum roast develops and enhances this cacao's fruity character. Days of stone grinding achieve a silky texture. The chocolate is heated, mixed and aerated--this is conching. Our medium conche mellows some of this cacao's raw acidic nature, resulting in a chocolate with complex flavors including notes of citrus, reminiscent of grapefruit. (Light roast, medium conche)

Medium roast, long conch
Batch #11-012
Batch size: 480
Created Mar. 18, 2011

Dark roast, medium conch
Batch #11-021
Batch size: 487
Created Sept. 2, 2011

Medium roast, medium conch
Batch #11-022
Batch size: 533
Created Sept. 29, 2011

The Markham River Valley in eastern Papua New Guinea is home to the single estate plantation where our Trinitario cocoa is harvested, wood-box fermented for five days then dried for up to three days before shipping. Rich volcanic soil and up to 102 inches of annual rainfall help create cacao with exceptional complexity that we highlight with different roast levels and conche durations. (Dark roast, medium conche)

The 225 Story: This Organic and Fair Trade cacao is from the Bellavista cooperative along the Rio Huallaga in the San Martin Region of central Peru. Its flavor complexity is among the most interesting we have encountered. Notes of red fruit and banana are enhanced by naturally occurring tannins, resulting in a complex array of flavors. Our light roast develops notes of berries and green banana. Days of stone grinding achieve a silky texture. The chocolate is heated, mixed and aerated--this is conching. Our medium conche refines an array of fruity and floral notes with an underlying chocolaty finish. Compare 225 with recipe 226 to experience how roasting levels dramatically change chocolate flavors. (Light roast, medium conche)

In the remote Mariañón River Canyon of Peru, rare white beans with rich nutty flavors co-exist with floral-fruity purple beans within the same cacao pods: a combination existing nowhere else in the world. This rare cacao, genetically verified by the FDA as Pure Nacional, was thought extinct for over 90 years. The high Marañón Canyon walls create a unique micro-climate where Theobroma Cacao thrives at over 3,500 feet above sea level, some of the highest altitudes ever reported. Once harvested, this organically grown cacao is transported by foot or by burro from remote farms to a single fermentation-drying facility dedicate to this unique crop. Chocolate made from this exclusive cacao has intense flavors with a floral aroma, persistent mellow richness and a remarkable lack of bitterness. (Dark roast, long conch)

Bean source: Kokoa Kamili, Kilombero District. Tasting notes: Raspberry, roasted nuts, deep cocoa finish.

A dark milk chocolate made with a mix of Nicaraguan cacao beans: Chuno and Rugoso among others. Fruity, spicy and creamy with an intense cocoa finish. All our cacao is sourced ethically and directly from the farmers.

Fragrant, bright, super-rich chocolate flavors last and last, with a refreshing chocolate finish. Extremely popular with pastry chefs, this 61% is a favorite eating chocolate as well.

Quite the character; behaves like an 80%. A subtle earthy aroma cleverly translates into the opening flavour notes, before transforming into bold notes of burnt sugar and treacle. This rough diamond emanates hints of freshly roasted coffee.

Short story: We proudly present our second 'single côt&e' chocolate, created from cocoa grown and harvested only on a single section of Rabot Estate, our 250-year-old cocoa plantation in Saint Lucia. The 15-acre Pépinière côte is the largest of our 16 côtes, bordered by riverbeds on the slope of a volcanic basin beneath the spectacular Piton Mountains and blessed with fabulously rich and fertile soil.

Deep and broodingly powerful, this chocolate appears under a veil of respect. The older brother of La Pepiniere, you can expect a couverture that hints of antique oak and roasted cocoa, developing bold notes of burnt caramel with a peppery long finish.

Short story: Not just single origin (from one country), or even single estate, we've gone deeper into the world of cocoa and produced single côte. From our own plantation in Soufriere, Saint Lucia, the cocoa has been kept separate as it is picked and fermented from each côte (terroir section) within the estate. This particular côte, Marcial, is a beautiful part of the estate near the Rabor lake, with a mix of grizzled 80-100 year-old trees and fresh new trees planted as seedlings, all bearing the rare Trinitario bean unique to the Rabot Estate.

A live-wire charmer. Opens with warming roasted notes, steps on the gas with a flourish of raspberries and cherries, before leaving you with an encore of roasted nibs and a whisper of coffee.

Short story: The beans we use are from the Somia Plantation in the Sambirano district, where the mineral-rich red soil and rain flowing down from the Tsaratanana mountain ranges provide the ideal cocoa conditions. Many growers insist that the fruit trees that once grew, and the prominence of vanilla, pepper and bay rose nearby, have superbly enhanced the flavour of the native cacao.

The long lost brother of Cienaga, Aracataca has an outburst of grapefruit and dried raisin with undertones of woody acidity finishing with a hint of roasted notes and a trill of coffee.

Short story: These Colombian beans are from the Northern part of Colombia on the coast of the Caribbean Sea. The Sierra Nevada is the world's highest coastal range creating fertile valleys to grow the Aracataca beans.

An elegant and fruity dark chocolate with a clean delivery and multilayered flavours of red berries, raisins, vanilla and coconut. Lightly acidic with floral notes.

An extra long 120-hour conching time makes this a less powerful, more subtle chocolate than the 96-hour version. A quick and intense flavour burst slowly opens up to reveal multilayered notes of raisins, figs, tobacco, honey and grapefruit. A hint of wildness about this chocolate.

Initial red fruit flavour notes slowly diminish to reveal oaked wine, citrus and a hint of spices. Rated as our best cuvée yet from Rabot Estate, the beans benefited from a lower temperature roasting and avoiding the midday sun whilst drying. 120 hour long conch.

A quick and intense flavour burst slowly opens up to reveal multilayered notes of raisins, figs, oaked wine, tobacco, honey and grapefruit. There's a hint of wildness about this chocolate, which we wanted to retain. Conching for 96 hours enabled us to do this. Our 120 hour conch version of this recipe makes an interesting comparison.

We managed to get hold of some of the most prized cocoa on earth! The Criollo beans give mellow flavours of roasted nuts, cream and caramel, raising and malt.

The Ocumare 61 is a renowned and unique species of the criollo cocoa tree. Renowned because of the exceptionally rounded flavours it delivers. The Ocumare valley is on the Venezuelan coast and this region is home to the best of Venezuela's cocoa. Very rounded flavours underpinned by good acidity. Look out for red fruit flavours and an earthy spiciness.

Cherries and cranberries are the first flavours to reveal themselves, followed by figs. The middle of the tasting experience is a chocolaty phase with roasted cocoa and some coffee. The finish shows a nice increasing bitterness with notes of liquorice and red wine tannins in a show of power and length.

Rabot Estate is Hotel Chocolat's own 130 acre cocoa plantation. The prime trinitario cocoa trees are rich in criollo genes and grow at high altitude in rich volcanic soil with plentiful rainfall. The Caribbean sea is visible from the estate slopes, nestling between the statuesque twin Piton mountains. A deep mahogany colour with initial red fruit flavour notes slowly diminishing to leave Shiraz, black olives and spices. Exceptionally long in the mouth.

An instant, refreshing tang bursts on you, then morphing to clear red fruit and passion fruit flavours. Next come light roasted notes for a long and elegant finish.

Tsáchila means 'the true people' and the people of this indigenous group have preserved their unique identity by keeping themselves to themselves on their 17,000 acre section of Ecuador. The men shave the sides of their heads and use red wax to dye and shape the remaining hair into a distinctive cap. They collect the cocoa from wild growing nacional-arriba trees scattered across their land. A flowery aroma suggests the unique flavour notes within. A light acidity and a strong, steady cocoa flavour fades to leave flavour tones of jasmine.

Sao Tomé and Principe is an island nation in the Gulf of Guinea off Africa. Cocoa was brought here in the late 1800s, the first to reach Africa. The historic Uba Budo plantation is in the Água Grande region and has a reputation for high quality. Normally forastero is seen more as a bulk cocoa but the best Sao Tomé beans have long been considered rather special. Immediate flavour burst of red fruit with later tones of spices and wood. Leaves a fresh finish.

Polished, with an undercurrent of wildness. Mellow cocoa notes welcome you in, gradually building in intensity before a surprising floral flourish at the peak. Gently subsiding to a clean cocoa, Bordeaux-wine finish. Short story: Made from a lovely batch of cocoa we bought from the Trinidad Cocoa Association. Well-fermented, high quality Trinitario beans, from the island that gave them their name.

Prima Donna with talent. She's good and she knows it - an interplay of cream anad caramel with malt and raisins, roast nuts and plenty of elegant pose. Short story: With only a small annual tonnage produced, fought over by rival chocolatiers, the name Chuao has attracted a certain cachet and a ramping of cocoa prices.

We managed to get hold of some of the most prized cocoa on earth! The Criollo beans give mellow flavours of roasted nuts, cream and caramel, raisins and malt.

Look for red fruit flavours then tobacco and leather in this powerful dark chocolate, made without vanilla to allow the true cocoa nib flavours to come through.

Subtle grapefruit, roasted nuts, and floral notes -- harvested from wild cocoa.

The FHIA is a nonprofit agroforestry project that serves as a gene bank for other projects in Honduras, as well as our own project in Guatemala. This particular harvest of La Masica was personally supervised by award-winning fermentation expert Daniel O'Doherty of Cacao Services. We were the first chocolate company to make chocolate from this harvest in 2015. It's been one of the most challenging bars for us to make, and one that we're quite proud of. Enjoy. Tasting notes: tart raspberry, mocha, cedar.

Trinitario cacao was born of the hybridization of Criollo and Forastero brought in country. Gran Couva, in the central part of Trinidad is considered ideal for growing and cultivating cacao. The Trinitario grown here was the first to be made into a single estate bar by the Valrhona Chocolate company. For the first time, Valrhona has allowed exports from this estate to the rest of the world. Tasting notes: marshmallow, vanilla.

This bar will fool ya! This really is a pure dark chocolate. We know it doesn't look that way but that is because this very special chocolate was made with rare White Beans from the remote valleys of Peru. The beans are certified organic/fair trade at their source and are so special that we had to promise not to reveal exactly how we got them; but we didn't promise not to make some of the best chocolate on the planet with them. The creamy texture and subtle fruit are only surpassed by the succulent chocolate finish. One taste of this bar is all it takes to make you think you are being fooled. But don't be it really is that good. It is not not [sic] an illusion. Or is it?

Madagascar is well known the world over for producing some of the finest cocoa beans. We got our hands on some excellent organic beans traded directly from the plantation at way above fair trade prices and put our spin on them. Two different roasts have been combined to provide a fantastic journey through the character of these beans. The intense fruit comes through singing the praises of the terroir only to be followed by a deep dark chocolate finish that satisfies like no other.

As we search the world over for the best chocolate we can find we have discovered this exceptional cacao from the Dominican Republic. Carefully grown, meticulously harvested and refined with Swiss precision; this is one of the finest chocolates on the planet. From the moment you unwrap this bar your senses will reel from the intensity and character that lies within. This rich and decadent chocolate bar will please you in ways you never thought possible.

Welcome to "The Wild Thing". A completeley [sic] wild cacao harvested in the jungles of Bolivia. This pure "Criollo" is one of the most prized chocolates in the world. The rich, earthy aroma is only surpassed by the sublime texture and taste. Just one experience with this rare and wondrous chocolate and you will be hooked for life. Roasted at very low temperatures and then carefully refined for almost 3 full days to achieve the right balance of taste, this chocolate bar is well known for it's perfection.

With only two ingredients, this is Hawaii-grown chocolate in it's [sic] purest form. Impeccable farming in nutrient rich soils, harvesting only at the peak of ripeness and careful fermentation ensure that we capture the absolute best of what Hawaii-grown cacao can produce. Then, we take care to gently roast and slowly stone grind the cacao beans to preserve the natural creaminess and bright citrus notes to create a powerful, delicious chocolate with an everlasting finish.

Tasting notes: sour cherry, spice.

Our first bar made with Kona cacao from Likao Kula farm where the rock star cacao grower Gini grows & ferments beautifully fruity & delicate cacao. The high altitude of this farm gives incredible creaminess and excellent gooseberry, marzipan, currant, peach, and Brazil nut notes to the chocolate.

Your purchase supports our melding of wild bird rescue and rehabilitation, habitat restoration and public awareness with healthy permaculture farming practices.

Combines cacao in 3 of its forms: tangy cacao fruit pulp and rich roasted nibs in a flavorful dark chocolate made from organic, fair trade cacao beans.

In the luxuriant shade of the plantations, the Forastero of the Amenolado variety in Equador has given rise to a rare, aromatic and slightly bitter cocoa: the Nacional. It will only grow on this land which, strangely, has given it an [sic] unique aroma of flowers and dried grasses...like the scent of an infusion.

In Madagascar the expression "Mora Mora" means "there are those things over which you should take more time." The Ramanandraibe family has crafted fine chocolate in Madagascar for 4 generations and the Mora Mora recipe has won widespread acclaim from leading chefs and chocolatiers. Mora Mora is a fine chocolate - grown, produced and packaged in Madagascar. This ensures we capture the freshness of the cocoa beans, which gives our chocolate its lovely fruity basal notes. It also means that a greater proportion of the finished cost is returned to the people of Madagascar, to help them develop their beautiful island. This is teh Equitrade ethos, for more information go to: www.equitrade.org

Bean: Chuao, Criollo beans
Location: Hacienda Chuao, Venezuela
Vegetation: Plantation in natural forest
Elevation: 200-400 above sea level
Harvest: 2010
Coordinates: 10°31'07"N, 67°32'44"W
Soil/irrigation: Forest, ancient methods
Farm: Chuao Farm Workers Company
Fermentation: Above 85% fermentation
Drying: Traditional drying on village drying patio next to church
Our roast: Gentle roast in drum roaster to preserve flavors
Conche: Medium long conche at elevated temperature
Taste profile: We ave used 70% of Chuao beans mixed with 30% unrefined cane sugar and no additives. The result is a smooth chocolate with natural cocoa flavor and very little bitterness. The Chuao cocoa is fruity and with hints of raisins/dried fruit. Suits well with your favourite warm drink or on its own.

A wonderfully complex bar with a long spicy finish, made with a selection of the finest cacao from the highland districts of Đắk Lắk province.

This full-bodied chocolate owes its spice and fruit notes to the Trinitario beans organically grown by farmers in the Cho Gao Co-op in the Mekong Delta.

This full-bodied chocolate owes its spice and fruit notes to the Trinitario beans organically grown by farmers of the Chợ Gạo Co-op in the Mekong Delta. We craft all of our chocolate in Saigon using purely Vietnamese ingredients of the highest quality.

We have brought all of our favorite beans from around the world to create our first house blend. A balanced chocolate with hints of red wine, tobacco and plum.

Organically farmed and shade grown under the Dominican canopy of banana and citrus trees. Notes of fresh sherries, molasses and strawberries.

From the Mayan jungles of southern Belize, this groundbreaking cooperative farms world-class, organic cacao. Notes of raisin, plum and sarsaparilla.

The Norandino Co-op in Peru unites small farmers with a common goal -- to preserve the Piura White Criollo Cacao and to improve the quality of life for their farming community. Tasting notes: Honey, plum, caramel, shortbread finish.

With this powerful and refined Grand Cru Occumare, whose origins date back to the time of the Mayas, you will discover an amazing range of flavours, transforming each bite into a moment of never-ending pleasure.

Warm notes of Vistula cherries, chocolate and black tea.

Creamy notes of capuccino and toasted nuts.

Notes of lemon, red berry and passionfruit sing out from this rarest among rare cacaos -- another fruit of Piura -- as dazzling as Peru's delicate butterflies it grows among.