And remember, it's not just donating money to help Chiapas farmers whose ancestors helped invent chocolateget organic certification, get better fermenting equipment, preserve their traditionalchocolate recipes & rare endangered spices, and bring this authentic traditional chocolate to the rest of the world, but for your backing you also get tons of great rewards like super rare bars we'll make from the first hand-roasted batch of Xoconusco cacao and hard-to-find spices, bars designed specifically toyour wants and needs, and privatechocolate classes. These delicious limited edition bars are worth the donation alone!

In fact, in a tasting we took part in at the Fine Chocolate Industry Association meeting in Washington DC on July 9th before the Fancy Food Show with our first limited run Xoconuscochocolate bars made with the aromatic maple-scented Oaxacan spice rosita de cacao

and carefully selected cocoa beans hand roasted on a traditional ceramic comal griddle in Chiapas,

we received unanimous praise from attendees.

Our Rosita de cacao Xoconusco chocolate, made in only 2 weeks bean to bar, waiting for expectant tasters at theFine Chocolate Industry Association meeting in DC, along with other great Latin Americanchocolates.

Even stacked up against such renowned finechocolate makers as Bonnat, Valrhona, Amano, Felchlin, and Pacari thatthe tasting organizer, the famous Cuban chef Maricel Presilla,had deftly arranged in a historical and geographic order from cacao & chocolate's origins in South and Central America, people including the founder of DagobaChocolate were waxing on, even with their small sample, about how much they loved the delicate aroma of the rosita with the fine, smooth, and fruity taste of the Aztec Royal Criollo cacao-basedchocolate. They were wondering when they could get full bars of our chocolate into their stores and mouths. Butyou can have several bars of this rarechocolate before any of the chocerati that were at the meeting if we can get to 100% backing in 7 more days.

It's not just the best chocolate makers and tasters in the country, but the local news in Hawaii is also excited about our project as both a way to get local sustainable economies rejuvenated in both Chiapas and Hawaii, and as way to jumpstart the world ofchocolate makers in Hawaii since we will use a small part of the kickstarter funds to be some of the first people to bring medium scalechocolate-making equipment to Hawaii. Right now it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem withchocolate here- no one wants to plant a ton of cacao since there's no equipment to process it on the islands, and no one wants to bring in the equipment since there's not enough cacao grown here currently to keep the equipment busy. This recent Honolulu Magazine article explains a bit of that issue and how we've been building up the equipment bit by bit, and supplementing the growing Hawaiian cacao production with modest shipments from Latin America. Imminent Hawaii food writer Martha Cheng's article inHonolulu Weekly describes how we and some other local small food businesses are using Kickstarter to get things started right.

And that's whereyou all come in- helping us getchocolate started right, with a sense of history, ethics, sustainability, locality, and most of all, deliciousness. So please spread the word to anyoneyou can to help us and the Mexican cacao farmers bringyou great tastingchocolate by backing our campaign. We hope to sendyou some of those tasty results in only 7 days!