Breaking the Chocolate Mold
If composing original chocolate-inspired music seems a bit out of the ordinary, AJ likes the originality of the project. So do the craft chocolate makers who will participate in the 2024 Michigan Chocolate Festival, now in its second year.
After all, operating outside the mainstream is precisely how Michigan’s chocolate producers developed their reputation for excellence. Participants in this year’s festival include chocolatier and festival host Atucún from Grand Rapids, Mindo from Ann Arbor, Grocer’s Daughter of Empire, Chocolate Thunder of Kalamazoo, Dwaar Chocolate from Metro Detroit and Yellow Bird of Albion, among others.
Premium chocolatiers like Atucún, for whom AJ serves as sales and marketing manager, define fine chocolate as coming from high quality cacao beans, according to AJ. “It has nothing to do with fancy chocolate shapes and fancy fillings.” And fine chocolate makers start with a heavy focus on the origins of their fruit, beginning with the cacao tree itself. These producers use the terms “tree-to-bar” or “bean-to-bar” to describe their finished product.
Tree-to-bar chocolate makers work with local growers, identifying genetically pure and even rare varieties of cacao typically grown in a polyculture of compatible crops, plants and trees. Knowledgeable farmers are paid fair wages to propagate and care for the cacao trees before harvesting the beans at the peak of their ripeness.
Miguel Efren Elvir Maradíaga, who founded Atucún from his home base in Comayagua, Honduras, in 2017, takes pride in overseeing two hectares of cacao plantings nurtured sustainably and in the traditional ways of the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, where chocolate originated and has been produced for at least 4,000 years.
“I am not Willy Wonka,” says Maradíaga. “There is no magic here in Honduras, it’s a lot of hard work.” But the payoff in quality – both of the cacao and in the lives of his partnering farmers – makes the effort worthwhile.
Once the cacao beans have been carefully roasted and processed, either in-country or abroad, minimal amounts of sugar are added to sweeten the bar while maintaining its natural flavor profile. Maradíaga believes the resulting bars are more nutritious and tastier than other types of chocolate, and he is convinced that customers recognize the difference immediately.
