Chocolate Fascination

At the 2019 Northwest Chocolate Festival, I caught up with Luisa Abram. We found a (mostly) quiet spot to discuss adventuring through the Amazon rainforest on boats and on foot, making new and high-quality milk powder, discovering new locales with great new cacao, making new […]

Join in my conversation with Julia and Kelley – recent members of the Utah Chocolate Society – as we talk about finding fine chocolate, finding chocolate nerds, and experiencing our legendary tournament for their first time! Utah has had great chocolate and a fun scene […]

Back in November, 2018, I was able to find John Nanci. Like a lion, I separated him from the masses, except then we sat and talked – for an hour! John started Chocolate Alchemy years and years ago to share what he found out about […]

The annual tournament may just be the highlight of all the Utah Chocolate Society does. Every year we start with 64 of the world’s best chocolate bars, and every year we subject ourselves to the toil of randomly pairing, tasting, and voting on them to […]

I got to meet Felipe and William of Diogo Vaz at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle back in November. Felipe and I sat down to talk chocolate and his background. He changed career paths dramatically 5 years ago to leave the office, corporate world […]

Lars Moller of Ingemann Fine Cocoa occupies a niche in the cacao supply chain that is rather unlike the vast majority. Ingemann buys cacao from farmers in Nicaragua, and they work the fermentation and drying of the beans – with an unheard-of level of sophistication […]

Bryan Graham and his wife Dahlia started Fruition Chocolate amidst a fascination with the mystique and magnetism of chocolate making drawing them in. Over the years, they have sourced great cacao and experimented with new approaches to single origin chocolate, inclusions, and confections. In this […]

Harish Manoj Kumar is the head farmer for Regal Chocolates where they grow cacao in southern India. In this interview, Harish tells us his story of beginning to grow cacao and learning how to greatly improve his family farm’s biological health and the quality of […]

Domantas Uzpalis, the man behind Chocolate Naive, is one of the most inspiring people I know in chocolate. His approach to chocolate-making is creative and thoughtful and fresh and new. But he is not merely jaded with the status quo. He wants to personally create […]

Matt Caputo is a longtime friend, and really a driving force behind my adventures in and passion for chocolate. The store started by his dad is where I have hosted the Chocolate Society from the beginning, and Matt personally introduced me to most of the […]

Emily and Dayton Koons began Cacao Review as an Instagram chocolate review project. They take beautiful pictures and review wonderful bars, but last year they launched their first chocolate bar collaboration collection featuring bars from some of the world’s top chocolate makers. This year, they […]

Steve, Mike, Erika, and AJ of Chocolate Conspiracy AJ founded Chocolate Conspiracy 8 years ago, and we met shortly thereafter. He is a fun character, and we have talked a lot over the years about all things chocolate. Chocolate Conspiracy has a very unique approach […]

I was able to sit down with Sarah Hartman of Harper Macaw last November at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, Washington. Sarah and her husband, Colin, are using Brazilian cacao to craft chocolate that is bold and fruity, and they are striving to help […]

DeAnn Wallin of Solstice Chocolate has a unique style that is quintessentially American and bold and fun. Solstice Chocolate typifies the sorts of qualities that makes American chocolate unique from European bars. Her chocolate is bold and bright and expressive, and she is a blast […]

In Part 1, Volker tells the story of his discovery of cacao that had been lost to Westerners – but was still known by the people in the jungle of Bolivia. In Part 2, we talk about the struggle of convincing the chocolate industry to […]

Volker is a brilliant and fascinating man who, after growing up in Germany, traveled the world in search of adventure and helping people. Join in our conversation as we discuss how he discovered and came to purchase the land whereon grows the most pure cacao […]

Last November, I was able to sit down with Hazel in the midst of the hubbub of the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle. Hazel is a HARD-core chocolate fan, and she is a member of the Academy of Chocolate, among other distinctions. Our focus is […]

Listen in to my conversation with Anna and Robbie of Ritual chocolate, 2 incredible people who have a truly singular vision about their ideal of fine chocolate. They discuss their backstory in beginning their company with attendent trials and stresses, and their perserverance to make […]

This second installment briefly discusses how to engage your senses to really experience chocolate. Did you know that you have WAY more than 5 senses? Or that tasting food engages more than just your tongue? So much of how we sense our food is beyond […]

Welcome to Chocolate Fascination! This podcast is all about fine chocolate. This introduction covers what is fine chocolate, how it is made, and how it differs from mass market chocolate – the likes of which most of us grew up with (even in Europe). Future […]