People often ask us “Why is there an elephant on the bar?” The answer is not easy to put in words, but that is also, in part, our elephant’s purpose.

As a chocolate maker I am often struck by the profound effects of food. Chocolate is of course special in the kingdom of foods often crowning the end of a wonderful meal, or perhaps rewarding the end of a day. Chocolate is often the jewel of celebration and I believe this is so because of its indelible effect upon our senses. And not just the exquisite tastes and unmatchable textures, but also the broad pharmacology of the chocolate seems to activate our biology in ways that other foods cannot.

Chocolate can certainly be intellectualized in the same tradition as wine and other fine foods. We can talk about bean genetics and terroir, processing methodology and origin. Its a wonderful conversation which we enjoy very much at Fearless. However, for me I am more sincerely struck by the pre-verbal magic of the cacao. I am struck by the liminal moment of tasting this jewel and the ensuing ballet upon my senses. I enjoy watching the same sensations ripple across the faces of those sharing our chocolate, and I marvel.

I like to claim that the enchantment of chocolate is ‘pre-verbal’ because I want the moment to be purely enjoyed without the lens of mature thought. Yes, I want you to be that kid again, devouring ravenously, or fervently savoring the mesmerizing nuances in each bite. Good food does that. The politics of good food are earnestly evident in their simple goodness, it cant be argued with. In the complex world I live in, I have developed such reverence for these simple and peaceful moments.

And back to elephants here is a wonderful story of the bond between a man and the wild elephants he cared for, please read it, as it is simply heartwarming. I love this story. It reminds me of the moment I realized that I love chocolate the way I love elephants…..with an affinity that needs no words. Most of us have not experience anything near the level of proximity to elephants as the man in this story, yet its undeniable the sense of brotherhood/sisterhood we feel with them. We love to marvel at their unfathomable majesty, their power, and their compassion. Within an elephant is potential. Indomitable creatures capable of extreme violence but more passionately demonstrative of love, family, kindness, gentleness. As we observe elephants we cant help but observe ourselves. Their size emblemizes the enormity of our egos. Their presence is unmitigated. And yet the depths of their sweetness seems unfathomable. Courageous creatures, Fearless through and through, elephants inspire.

Clearly I can find no shortage of words to describe why I LOVE elephants, but do I really need any words to explain this to you? I dont think so. I think you understand in the same way that I do. Its a feeling. A sense of kindred spirit. A sense of connectedness that exists far deeper in who YOU are than words can ever touch. Elephants mere existence somehow teaches us who we are.

Chocolate for me is the same. Its a food that is a friend that is a teacher that reminds me to experience THIS very moment and all others with sweet, delectable reverence!

For this reason and many others we chose an elephant as the totemic figure on our Fearless Chocolate bars. The elephant is you and the elephant is your potential. The chocolate will remind you that your true wealth is what your natural experience of all things, even those that taste less wonderful than chocolate.

Thank you, dear elephants, for enjoying FEARLESS CHOCOLATE and for reading this article below, it is one you will not soon forget…

Wild Elephants Gather Inexplicably, Mourn Death of “Elephant Whisperer”

An amazing voice mail was left for us over a weekend a few months back. Actually, it was three voice mails, as the caller kept getting cut off. Determined to be heard, he called back to finish his stream of consciousness.

FEARLESS Chocolate called back, and asked him to make a video to accompany the story he left us. Here is part one:

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of the World’s Largest Living Container of Chocolate.

That is fearless, folks. Amazingly so.

Since you’ve found the FEARLESS blog, I’ll wager you know what these countries have in common. But do you know what the following countries have in common?

France, Germany, U.S., Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, England, Australia.

These are the counties that make and consume 90% of the world’s chocolate.

If the former countries grow the chocolate, and the latter ones make and eat it, have you ever considered, as a chocolate consumer yourself (and you know you are), the process in which chocolate gets from country A to country B.

Simply: Can You Trace Your Chocolate?

Do you absolutely know where your chocolate comes from and how ethical, environmental, direct or indirect the trading process?

Life by the handful

Buyers and makers of chocolate take various approaches to the purchase of beans. Some recent and popular words like Fair Trade, Direct Trade, Bean-to-Bar, Microbatch, and Handcrafted have circulated, and anyone who has a serious interest in frequent chocolate consumption should be familiar with these words.

You’ve probably heard of Fair Trade (FT) by now. FT is when buyers pay a “fair price” to producers or growers. The “fair price” is evaluated by a third party organization (the FT organization) that considers cost of production, cost of work input, cost of producer/grower’s living conditions, etc, then, if the plantation meets the standards, the third party stamps the plantation with a  seal of approval. In chocolate, this seal informs the consumer the chocolate has met the standards of the FT organization. Those growers that choose (or can afford) to buy a FT organization’s certification become a part of a cooperative, so when beans are bought, a large percent (between 50-80%) goes to the cooperative, and a small percent (between 30-50%) goes to the growers. The growers do make decisions about the projects and actions that the cooperative makes, but they almost never receive full payment of the paid price.

Despite the positive direction of FT, it has downsides. Most growers are too poor to pay for a FT certification, and if they can afford it, they do not receive direct payment for their beans. For the consumer, FT might mean a limited bean variety, since FT certified growers exist in only 11 origins. In addition, many large corporations buy a percentage of their beans as FT to “trick” the consumer into thinking they’re a “green” company.

For the reasons above, many chocolate makers prefer Direct Trade. DT requires a chocolate maker, usually a single person or small group of people making the chocolate, to develop a face-to-face relationship with the grower. The DT buyer almost always pays higher then FT prices to the grower, and the grower gets 100% of the payment. Some chocolate makers even pay above the FT price and start schools or profit sharing. In direct trading, the buyer has complete control of the bean quality and production. The major downside to DT is that the consumer and the grower must trust the integrity of the buyer, that the buyer pays and practices what he claims.

Cacao Pods on the ground

Due to direct trade buying, bean to bar chocolate making has come to dominate the future of chocolate. In bean to bar, the chocolate maker has complete control of the chocolate from the moment it’s plucked from the tree to the consumer’s purchase of the bar. This includes the way and type of beans plucked, the treatment of the growers, the shipment of the beans to the buyer, and the chocolate making.

Inside the bean-to-bar, direct trade chocolate making world, there are finer terms that some chocolate makers use, like microbatch and handcrafted. Microbatch simply means a smaller amount of chocolate is made per batch. Hand crafted is a marketing term, because in reality, no chocolate can be made without a machine (unless literally four hundred people do the work of one machine, which is, obviously, ridiculous). In bean to bar chocolate making, much of the chocolate is hand-crafted, but a machine separates the shell from the bean (winnowing) and blends the sugar and the chocolate liquor (conching). Realistically, handcrafted means the chocolate maker oversees in-house chocolate on an intricate level.

With the terms clarified, I asked Jordon Michael Schuster, one of the founders of FEARLESS chocolate, how FEARLESS trades and produces their chocolate.

Schuster is a direct trader. He works with three family-owned farms in Brazil, called the Badaro Farms, and visits the farms on a yearly basis (he returns this September) to oversee and make large-scale decisions. He is also in weekly contact with the farms.

FEARLESS is a microbatch chocolate maker in that it makes a ton of chocolate a week. Schuster tells me this is their maximum batch size, and within this production “We [FEARLESS CHOCOLATE] have well elaborated bean selecting criteria based upon 1. bean genetics 2. bean appearance 3. moisture content 4. micro-analysis (for bacterial contamination). All the selected beans are dried and hand-sorted.”

Thus, we have unloaded a minute beginning to the industry of chocolate, giving you confidence in your chocolate purchases. So challenge yourself by testing your buyer! Ask the tough questions: you have a right to know!

• Where’s my chocolate from?

• How is it traded?

• Do you deal directly with the buyer or use third party traders?

• Is it made in micro batches?

• And is my chocolate made bean-to-bar, from the fermenting to the conching to the molding?

Don’t settle for the middle man chocolate makers with their inferior beans. Claim your chocolate snobbery!

Consume FEARLESSLY!

By Heather Palmer

Written on September 12th, 2011

Heather Palmer has an MFA in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her book works include the online-serialized novella Charlie’s Train (the2ndhand), the chapbook Mere Tragedies (Girls With Insurance) and the novella Complements: of Us (Spork Press). Her forthcoming poetry book, Starfish Over Oyster, will be published with Love Symbol Press in early 2012. She has blogged for FEARLESS chocolate, edited at Monkeybicycle Magazine and Dzanc Books, and now teaches grammar at Harold Washington College of Chicago. Read more about her at “Fine Salt”, her blog: http://frsh.in/palmer

Your mission, should you choose to ingest it, is to disarm a carefully-roasted coffee bean wrapped in a dried tart cherry, jacketed in dark chocolate, and dusted with cayenne cocoa…with your mouth! The Cherry Expresso Bomb-Bon packs a pleasant crunchy punch, tart up front with a delicious spicy fallout.

The Dark Chocolate Pick-Me-Up bar is perfect for rocket-jumping past the afternoon hurdle of drowsiness. We’ve infused our signature 75% Dark as Midnight with a healthy dose of Bicycle Coffee’s freshly ground Medium Roast. You’ll wish this silky-smooth and surprisingly sweet bar was a bottomless cup, so be sure to enjoy one tasty square at a time.

Bicycle Coffee is all about delivering great-tasting coffee by bicycle. Roasting organic, fair-trade, hand-picked, and shade grown Arabica beans, they deliver freshly roasted bags of coffee to offices, grocery stores, and cafes in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. Bicycle Coffee uses a custom-built, small batch roaster allows them to roast our coffee exactly how they like it. Keeping their nose to the coffe grindstone, their beans change seasonally, but always offer medium, dark, and decaf roasts. We used a mix of the Nicaraguan medium roast and the Mexican dark roast from Chiapas.

We biked over to pick up the beans ourselves just minutes after they roasted them right before we made this batch of delicious chocolate. Believe you me (er, us), it’s very amazing.

FOR MORE INFO ABOUT OR TO SIGN UP FOR EAT-MAIL, CLICK HERE TO GO TO WWW.FEARLESSCHOCOLATE.COM

Our eyes anxiously await Amon’s ambitious undertaking.