Have you ever wanted to do something really right; the way it should be done? Like making sourdough bread over the course of several days or building a wood fired oven? Adam Dick and Dustin Taylor have brought that thinking to the craft of making chocolate. In spades.
As fine woodworkers, they know that hand crafted trumps machine produced and they bring that artisan heedfulness to the chocolate they make starting by hand selecting the cacao beans they roast themselves. Roasting takes place in a Royal #5 coffee roaster that they lovingly refurbished.
"How did we go from building furniture and wood boats to making chocolate? For as long as we can remember, we have been making things by hand. The time and care required in fitting a mortice or shaping a plank is not unlike the process of hand crafting chocolate from the bean. We have never shied away from a challenge in order to produce a beautifully finished product. It is just part of who we are."
"It is amazing, that even to this day, most wooden boats are built almost entirely by hand. Even the most complicated of machines can't shape the changing bevel on the edge of a plank or the face of a sawn frame."
"Patience and care must be taken to fit all joints water tight. It is not a fast process. We feel like much of the patience required to build a boat carries over to the chocolate making process. We don't rush the process, often repeating steps if they are not done right the first time, scrapping an entire batch if we are not proud of the product."
Using only two ingredients (cacao and sugar) these men coax the flavor out of every bean into the most exquisite bar of chocolate you may have ever tasted.
Other chocolatiers add emulsifiers, cocoa butter or vanilla to enhance their chocolate but Adam and Dustin see those ingredients as covering up the true flavor of the chocolate. The entire process of roasting, grinding, aging, molding and tempering can take a month to complete, but the result has all the nuance of a fine bottle of red wine. They have as much similarity to a Hershey's bar as a wood fired Neapolitan pizza does to a frozen supermarket pizza.
Every aspect of their process is old-school and thoughtful. Even the labels are original artwork of the lumber schooner C.A. Thayer which traveled from Humboldt Bay to San Francisco.
Why illustrate the art of a ship building on a bar of chocolate? "We chose our [this] illustration to highlight a craft that is near and dear to us, the craft of a Shipwright. In our minds the pinnacle of wood-craft is boat building. The complex, and constantly changing curves of a boat hull represent the greatest challenge to the woodworker.
"The most hands-on approach we could take was to start with the raw cacao. We are able to source the finest fair-trade cacao and preform all the steps in-house to turn the raw ingredients into delicious chocolate, all in our small factory in Arcata, California.
This entire process takes over a month to complete, but allows us to make some of the finest chocolate possible. We only use organic cacao and organic cane sugar in our chocolate. By not cutting corners, or taking shortcuts in our process, we are able to leave out vanilla, additional cocoa butter or other emulsifiers, in hopes of capturing and highlighting the subtle flavor nuances in the cacoa we source from around the world. We hope you will get as much enjoyment eating our chocolate as we do making it."
At the current time, there are six chocolates available
(my tasting notes- your impression will certainly be different):
(my tasting notes- your impression will certainly be different):
- 72% Madagascar: Citrus and berry notes.
- 72% Belize: Floral with dried fruit. A 2013 Good Food Awards Finalist and Northwest Chocolate Fest Bronze award winner.
- 76% Equador: mildly acidic, robust chocolate flavor with mild floral notes and earthy cherry
- 74% Dominican Republic: strong, acidic and assertive. A bold bar with citrus notes. My personal favorite.
- 70% Equador with Black Fig: a lovely combination that brings out the sweet, leathery tobacco notes of both the chocolate and the fruit.
- 74% Dominican with a sprinkle of Fleur de Sel: Takes a little getting used to, but once you have developed the taste for salted chocolate, nothing else compares.
Until I tried Dick Taylor chocolate, I had no idea of the subtle complexity that chocolate could possess. Some may be surprised at the slightly higher price of this kind of fine chocolate. But this is a chocolate to savor and relish on the tongue not to gobble thoughtlessly. One of my favorite desserts is a glass of port, an ounce or so of Dick Taylor chocolate and some fresh fruit. Doesn't get much better than that. As Michael Levine said, "Chocolate really is the perfect food."
I celebrate those of us who are returning to a slower, more thoughtful way of crafting the things we enjoy. Keep up the good work, Adam and Dustin. If you are in Arcata on a Monday when the tasting room is open, be sure to drop in. Also available online and in many stores.
Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate | 5301 Boyd Rd. Arcata, CA 95521 | (707)843-9255 | craftchocolate@gmail.com
Photos used by permission.
Photos used by permission.
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