We dont have to do anything except point out the truth. Eventually the reality of what they are doing will trickle down to the consumer.This IS NOKA all over again. They didnt last long either.
BUT....my mummified alapaca skin wrapped bars for $1000 each will be available soon....well....as soon as we can get the shaman down out of his ayahuasca induced trance....bugger is too high to be blessing anything right now...
She succumbed to the BS in person....
Ok just watched it. Pure hype. He deferred to his website constantly. Its marketing garbage. Watch his eyes; even he doesn't believe the horse shit he is spewing.
this is a travesty. It in no way defines the concept of a 100$ chocolate bar. This is pure unadulterated marketing. plain and simple. while they will certainly sell every bar they have, only a fool would believe they made 1 batch of 28 kilos. That is one tank in a cocoatown. This is not real. The website is beautiful, for sure, but the story of these beans and the process is a bit muddy. rare secret trees....yet they have 14 farmers?....which is it guys?
whatever....like NOKA this will disappear....
I had no idea anna was still in business. She makes beautiful chocolates and is a sweetheart to boot.
So yeah...its really a matter of taste. Some poeple swear by one or the other but having eaten everyones chocolate on every top 10 list I couldnt say who was the best. Each chocolatier has a specialty that discerns their work from the others. Each one has something great they bring to the table. Julien is an excellent chocolatier but he is hamstrung by being part of a large corporation where shelf stability trumps taste. You see this alot. Mass production need not kill the quality but it can.
when I made one of those Top 10 Lists I was flabbergasted to be up on stage with jaques, and norman and michael reccuitti and norman and jen and julien....but then I thought about it and realized my work is just as good even if not as widely known. I keep it simple and small and do what needs to be done to stay original. Thats what you should look for, originality and balance. The chocolate still needs to be the star---not the pretty colors or the exotic flavor combo....
yep. I mean we know clay cant say it, and others may be too nice. This, of course, is not my MO. These guys have zero track record for making quality chocolate. ...or ANY chocolate for that matter. I suppose I am just jealous on some level because I am honest to the point of recklessness and feel that what they are doing is dishonest. Its NOKA all over again. I might as well do my own....
"Announcing the world's most expensive chocolate bar! These one of a kind cacao beans were spoon fed to sloths in the costa rican rainforest and extracted from their feces in a loving and kindly manner after fermenting in their slow moving guts for 3 whole days. Each individual bean was hand roasted, one at a time, in a used smack heads spoon from the lower east side with a bic lighter. They are then cracked with a ball peen hammer and then winnowed with the breath of nubile virgins. The sugar was processed in a toaster oven heavily modified by our crack equipment crew having been salvaged from a burned out tenement in the Bronx. After 462 hours of grinding in a mortar and pestle by coca fueled aliens in a Tuscon shitbox the finished chocolate is aged in an old gold mine in a pool of fulminated mercury for 6 months. Each individual 100 gram bar is wrapped in the dried skin of an alapaca that died of natural causes no later than 1749 and was skinned by a shaman under the influence of ayahuasca and mummified at high elevation in the Bolivian Andes. Each one of these shaman blessed bars is certified gluten free, certified organic, certified vegan, certified GMO free and only $1000.00 per bar."
annmarie? There is no way on the face of this earth that the toak chocolate is what they say it is. Their website is inconsistent(we have 14 farmers--but only a few 100 year old trees?))...to the packaging and hype around it. So this ex wall street guy goes on a surfing safari, falls in love with chocolate and voila...he makes the worlds most expensive chocolate bar? I will call bullshit on it everyday from now to eternity. What they claim is just not possible. nor do these guys have any experience making chocolate. It takes years of practice and experimentation to get a quality product, even from really good beans. This bar is marketed to the 1% and they will buy it...but you can well bet it is not any better than Pacari or even a Guittard Ecuador for that matter....
People listen, pay attention, and measure others' performance by what they say.
If my work is being judged or assessed by others because of the spin some hipsters with deep pockets in Brooklyn say, as opposed to the actual quality of the product, then this industry is doomed.
good point jim. It is very easy for those of us making chocolate to be nit picky and catty about what others do in this industry. Its really none of my business what the mast brother pay or say they pay for their beans.
Highly unlikely those prices were paid anywhere, to anyone....
premium prices run about $5k+ a MT for FTO....and they arent saying they use FTO are they?
howard...
I was approached 2 years ago by a man who said he was representing some cocoa farmers in Samoa. He talked a long talk and was slicker than seal fat. Long story short it was a scam. Now the good people at the farm in Samoa were nice enough but the man who was representing them and was supposedly setting up the NGO was a con artist who had bilked other industries in Samoa out of money. I have his name and a long list of lawsuits filed against him if interested.
The beans he sent me were either completely moldy or not fermented at all.
PT Barnum would be laughing his ass off if he wasn't dead.
We no longer carry this product due to possible long-term harmful sideeffects on human health. For more current information, search the webfor articles on the health effects on health of long-term consumptionof quantities or raw cacao beans.
Also, it seems that cacao beans that are generally advertised as raw aren'traw at all. Here's a letter from one of the suppliers.
Dear friends, customers and partners of Essential Living Foods,
This is a communication inspired by our need for transparency and integritywith you our beloved partners and allies in the health and superfoodnutrition industry.
I would like to share with you information that we have recently uncovered about issues regarding the cacao powderand butter processing from Ecuador and other parts of the world. Wehave been traveling around the world gathering all of the evidencenecessary to make an accurate statement.
This is a continuation of our commitment to transparency and revealing true and detailed informationabout the superfoods we provide to you.
We recently discovered very disappointing news that our cacao powder andbutter supplier was misleading us about the Low Temperatureprocessing they were using to extract our powder and butter.Fortunately, Essential Living Foods will soon be one of only twocompanies distributing a TRULY verified RAW cacao butter & cacaopowder sourced from Bali Indonesia, pressed under 118 degrees.
The Truth about Cacao Powder and Cacao Butter
A few weeks ago, one of the worlds leading chocolate experts (an oldfriend of ours) called to let us know hed been interviewed for anexpos article about the RAW cacao industry. Our friend had been askedto sample all the leading RAW cacao powder and butter brands (includingEssential Living Foods) and to give his opinion about which cacaopowders and butters were truly RAW productsprocessed under 120 degreesFahrenheit.
Soon after the taste test, our friend called to warn us that he didnt think our cacao powder was raw at all. In fact, none ofthe major brands he tasted could prove that their cacao powder wasprocessed RAW under 120 degrees F. He said there was only onemanufacturer (located in Bali) that had developed the machinerynecessary to produce a truly cold-pressed, RAW cacao butter and powder.
We were shocked to hear this, since we have a 6-year relationship with ourEcuadorian cacao supplier, and from the beginning they assured us thattheir cacao butter & powder were RAW, with specialtemperature-control processes involved.
Because of our commitment to Transparency & Integrity, we had verified nearly everythingabout our cacao products, visiting farms and cacao-bean-fermentationco-operatives, cacao nib processors, and more over the years. Everyfacility we ever visited was 100% Raw, Organic, and paying fair-tradewages to its workers...but we had never been invited nor did we demandto visit the butter/powder processing location.
We needed to know the truth for ourselves and our allies so we immediatelycalled our supplier to say that I was flying to Ecuador for aface-to-face explanation. When I arrived, however, our supplier refusedto let me inspect their cacao-powder processing facility: shockingbehavior from someone wed worked so closely with over the years. Wetold them that even though they would not let us see the facility, wewould find it and get the full story for ourselves and our customers.
The next day, I took our infrared laser digital-thermometer and flew tothe largest cacao-processing city in Ecuador to meet with severalprocessing companies, one of whom turned out to handle our own cacaopowder and cacao butter! Though this facility was clean, and certifiedorganic, we found out that they extracted all cacao powder and butterat temperatures no less than 200-300 degrees Fahrenheit!
We all know why this isnt ideal: heat degrades many nutrients andco-factors in foods, including antioxidants and enzymes. So why wouldanyone press RAW cacao at these temperatures? Simple: the machinesconstructed over the years to produce cacao butter and powder aroundthe world create high temperatures to reduce or eliminate microbes.
A Call for Transparency in the Superfood Supply Chain
This experience has inspired us to lead a movement to increase transparency in the superfood industry.Though certifications like Organic and Fair Trade are important, they dont say enough about the quality of the food on your plate...or thesupply-chain that gets it there. How is your food harvested, processedand transported? Is it carbon-neutral? Is it sold in ecologicalpackaging? Is it RAW? What impact does this product have on localcommunities?
In closing, we appreciate your efforts to help us create a healthier world through super nutrition, an improved quality of life on smallorganic farms and indigenous communities and promoting sustainableorganic agriculture across planet Earth.
With respect,
Kipp L. Stroden
Co-Owner
Essential Living Foods
