Beans, Boulder and the Biz

As of late, we’ve often heard the question, “When will you be selling chocolate?” Big long “sigh.” If starting a business were easy, we’d have bounds of chocolate awaiting your oral pleasure, but of course, that isn’t the case.

Not only are we starting a business, but we are beginning an adventure in chocolate making. Initially it doesn’t sound too difficult, but there are many things that we need to consider before becoming an established chocolate producer. Some of these speed bumps are as follows: sourcing good beans, becoming an importer, becoming certified organic and fair trade if possible, producing a kick ass bar of chocolate, wrapper design, finding a building that is safe for food production, finding and acquiring the right equipment, writing the business plan, etc, etc, etc… Did I mention raising start-up money and coming up with a name that is worthy of who we are and the quality of chocolate that we make?

Despite the many speed bumps, hurdles and steeplechases, we’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve found several bean growers that we are very, very, very excited about. We’re becoming more and more confident with our chocolate making skills with every new batch and we’re learning that experience is the best teacher. Finally, we have a great circle of support and we wouldn’t want to start making chocolate in any other city than Boulder.

Everyday is a learning experience and we love every minute of it. Making (good) chocolate is very challenging, which is actually part of the reason we chose to make chocolate. As in most aspects of life, the biggest challenges are the most rewarding, and this is proving to be the most difficult task that we have encountered. On the bright side, if we’re ever in doubt, all we have to do is taste some of our chocolate and we’ll remember why we decided to do this in the first place.

I just wanted to give a quick update about what we are up to and that we still plan to be Boulder’s first bean to bar chocolate company. Today I roasted two test batches of beans from a farm in Costa Rica. They are not as fruity as our last batch but I think they should produce a very good, well-rounded chocolate. But first, we’re going to make a batch of white chocolate tomorrow for Anna’s sister’s birthday (she’s a fan of white chocolate).

We have five single origin bars currently: Panama, Southern Costa Rica, Central Costa Rica, Northern Costa Rica and Sambirano Valley, Madagascar. Let us know if you’d like a taste.