Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate

We have never shied away from a challenge in order to produce a beautifully finished product. It is just part of who we are.                                       ~Dustin Taylor and Adam Dick

How did two craft masters – Dustin Taylor and Adam Dick – specializing in furniture and wood boats come to be premier bean-to-bar crafters of chocolate? According to Taylor and Dick, the answer lies with time, care, courage and commitment. Fitting a mortice or shaping a plank is not unlike handcrafting chocolate from a cacao bean says the co-founders of Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate. Both processes are challenging and must be done slowly to exacting specifications to produce a beautifully finished product.

In the chocolate making process, the first step is to source fine fair-trade cacao beans. For Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate, that means cacao beans from Belize, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Madagascar.

All of the steps that take the cacao bean to chocolate – sorting, roasting, winnowing, refining, milling, conching, tempering, molding, wrapping, and packaging – are done in-house and take more than a month from beginning to end.

Using only two ingredients – cacao beans and pure cane sugar – to make their chocolate, Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate does not hurry the process which allows them to make chocolate bars without vanilla, additional cocoa butter, and emulsifiers (i.e. soy lecithin).

The subtle and nuanced flavor of the cacao bean is captured and highlighted in each bar. If there is ever a doubt about how truly exceptional Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate is, look no further than Chez Panisse (Alice Water’s restaurant in Berkeley, California) who uses Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate in the restaurant.

Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate‘s exquisite chocolate bars are available in strengths of 72%, 74%, and 76%. Each 2 ounce bar is a work of art (for the eyes and the tongue) and sells for $8.50 with free shipping for all orders over $75. Also available are bars with chopped figs, coconut caramelized in maple syrup, and Fleur de Sel.

To read more about Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate or to place an order, go to the company website: www.dicktaylorchocolate.com. And, yes, the founders still do some woodwork – as in making their chocolate retail displays.