WEBVTT - The Awakening 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.840 I'm walking down eighteen Street by six a past the 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.439 Metro pavilion, and I see this line outside and I'm saying, 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.160 what are you guys doing? And they're saying, um, we're 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.960 going to the chocolate show. I was like the chocolate show. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:40.040 That's Mark Christian, chocolate historian, critic, and philosopher. I didn't 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:41.640 get a pH d or anything like that. I gotta 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.520 tell you I had earned a c h d. Chocolate Doctor, 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:49.360 Doctor of Chocolate without a doubt, without a doubt. Dr 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.239 Chocolate is such a legend that a rave review from 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:54.480 him can propel a new bar to fame and fortune. 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.560 But back in the early few thousands, gourmet chocolate wasn't 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.840 on his radar. I get in there and I'm walking around. 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.840 I instantly I caught on that, you know what, this 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.920 is the same crowd as in Amsterdam the Cannabis. The 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.000 room was vibing almost the same, and they were such 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:16.480 a captive, passionate group. At the time, Mark was managing 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.720 events around the world, including the Cannabis Cup. Now I'm 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:25.080 a non user, but my business partner is more than 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.400 a user. He's waking, bake and you know, and shake 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.000 the flake all day long, and as he poked around, 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.600 his Spidey sense told him that maybe he found the 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.720 next big recreational substance. I had an encounter with a 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:44.520 gentleman named Alessio Testier. He with his sister owned a 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.920 company called Ama Day. And this guy was speaking in 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.480 such you know, classic high falutint terms of this legacy 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:56.760 and lore of chocolate. And he's dressed in this Armandi 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.720 suit that's just you know, cut to the max. And 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.440 right away might BS detector went off, you know, do 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.000 you know it's sort of like, don't bullshit the bullshitter. Okay, 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:09.960 what are you doing? But he said no, no, no, 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.280 you don't understand. He's telling me about how he has 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.600 this exclusive deal with this place called chew Wow, the 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.160 women who was primarily a woman led cooperative. They would 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.320 sun and dry the beans on the plaza of the church, 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.639 you know, every season, and son there only seven acres. 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.440 And he went on and on and on and on, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.120 and I was just saying, come on, chocolate is what's 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:36.080 Halloween candy? What are you talking about? So Alessio gave 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:41.239 markat Chuil Bar to try. It was massive. You know, 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.680 Chewa is heavy on the bell. It's big. It's the 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:51.600 blueberry pie of chocolate. It's got massive blueberry appeal. Chua 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.120 was considered the greatest chocolate on earth at that time, 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.760 and Alessio Tessiery had stolen it. He had tiptoed into 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.160 the den of Valona, the French kingpin of gourmet chocolate, 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.640 which once held exclusive control over the supply, and pride 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.400 it right out of their hands. Alessia was the bad 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.040 boy of chocolate, the Alfante rib the young Italian who 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:17.080 refused to play by the French rules, and he wasn't 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.720 bullshitting the bullshitter. There really was only a tiny supply 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.800 of Chiuao beans coming from a single isolated valley on 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.160 the mountainous Venezuela coast, and it really was dried by 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.440 a hand by the women of Chuao on the town's 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:33.639 church plaza. And those three factors, the beans, the place, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.680 and the care they set it apart. For years, Valarona 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.200 had enjoyed a lock on Chuao and on the world, 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.720 especially chocolate. It was the most famous company and Chuaw 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.600 was its most coveted bar. But it never paid that 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.400 much of a premium to the Chuow Cooperative for those beans, 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.440 because back then nobody paid more for beans just because 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.320 they tasted good. Cocat wasn't wine. It was treated more 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:02.240 like corn, a commodity, but changed the day Alessia Tessieri 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:10.760 stole you all away. What Alessio understood was that there 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.280 was a world of people who thought of chocolate like wine, 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:15.960 and they were willing to pay a lot for a 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.640 great experience, and that meant great cacaws like Chuaw were 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.360 worth way more than any of the chocolate companies realized. 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.480 And as everyone else in the chocolate business figured that out, 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:30.000 all eyes fell in Latin America, Cocao's birthplace. If there 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.799 were more choos out there, villages harboring beautiful old varieties 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.039 from cocao's pre industrial golden era, that's where they'd be. 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:42.480 The great cacao gold Rush was on. It was almost 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.240 a search of gold, but actually hit the cacaw is 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:50.440 the gold, and eventually it was going to lead to 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.440 right from Volka Lehman's Olivian doorstack and make him wonder 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.480 why he ever got sucked in in the first place. 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:02.000 Sometimes I think all all days for Damn bar On. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:10.320 Talking from Glidys Delvin i Heeart podcasts, this is obsessions 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:28.000 wild Chocolate. I'm Roman Jacobson, Chapter three, The Awakening. Let's 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:32.400 talk about that sabled place called chu Wow Wow che 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:38.719 Wow che wowca cow chocolate wow Wow. It's quite musical. 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:43.839 People elevated, levitated, as you know, the Vatican of Chocolate. 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.640 The Chuow Holy War began in when Alessio Tessiery and 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.760 his sister Cecilia launched their chocolate company am A Day 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.600 Ahma Day was this upstart out of Italy, a brother 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.320 and sister team, kind of like you know Phineas and 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.280 Billy Hilish right. Like most of all chocolate tiers, I'm 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.159 and I didn't make its own chocolate. Instead, it bought 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.279 product from one of the handful of giant companies that 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.239 made chocola from beans. That practice is still common. Amini 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.640 wanted to be a very high end chocolate tier, and 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.480 that meant they needed a supply of top notch chocolate, 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.760 and in the nine nineties, that meant doing something no 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.000 Italian ever wants to do. They needed to suck up 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.880 to France. French chocolate making goes back quite a ways, 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:34.320 and like everything of French couture, they regarded themselves at 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:38.000 the highest pinnacle in this case, there's no question where 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.960 the particular sucking up needed to take place. They go 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.560 to tan Lemitage, which is south of Leone in France, 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.760 to the house of val Roona. Bell Rona had the 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.280 best supply of Grand Crew level chocolate in the world. 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.560 Val Rona had this la la reputation back then and 0:06:55.600 --> 0:07:00.240 even still today. It's highly renowned, highly regarded. Very new 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.800 chocolate maker who wanted to enter the upper echelon had 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.600 to make the pilgrimage to detain hermitage and prostrate themselves 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.120 before the lords of chocolate. And that's what Alessie Cecilia did, 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:14.240 after waiting months for an appointment. The story goes, these 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.160 young Italians show up and the French snub them, which 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.760 is kind of a national trait, you know, with all 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.960 apologies to the French people in the world. Uh, they said, nah, 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.720 you're you're you're too below our standard. We can't deal 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.400 with you. Sent away empty handed, you know, come back 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.680 when you've reached a sufficient level of cultural enlightenment. They 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.080 were feeling, as I said, snubbed. They went back to Italy, 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.040 you know, with their tails between their legs and they 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:45.800 were like hm, hmmm, we'll remember that. Not only did 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.800 they remember it, they devoted their lives to avenging the insult, 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.880 which basically what was kind of a declaration of war 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.880 as some people saw it. And you know what happens 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.440 when France and Italy clash. Let me think about you 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:04.600 got products and Hermes, you've got our money and Louis Vattan. 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:16.880 This is a rivalry. So Alessio and Cecilia came up 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.320 with a new business plan. Cecilia would learn to make 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.080 chocolate from the beans, and Alessia would figure out where 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:26.280 to get the good stuff. Alessia spent the hustling. He 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.440 traversed Latin America, meeting with farmers, tasting beans, doing everything 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.480 he could to make himself the ultimate insider, and that 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.680 work paid off. By the two thousands, Amaday was making 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:38.840 some of the most coveted single rigs and chocolate bars 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.040 in the world. But Alessio had just begun and he 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.640 was dead set on securing the most prized beans of all, 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.240 chew wow. He worked at it for years, slowly earning 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.720 trust on the ground, building relationships, buying new uniforms for 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.680 the baseball team. They do whatever, pretty much it takes 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:59.440 so to speak. Not only were they bearing gifts, but 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:05.000 they all pledged to pay in advance. That's pretty good. Ultimately, 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.040 it came down to cold, hard cash. Amada offered to 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.280 triple the price of Varona was paying, and to pay 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.800 up front, and it worked. In two thousand four, the 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.400 coup was complete. The Chewaw Cooperative sent registered letters to 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.360 Valona and other chocolate makers. All of its beans will 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.840 be going to Amidae, and only Amada had the right 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:27.120 to use its name. For years, rumors have persisted that 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.480 this war got really nasty. We've heard all sorts of 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.680 things that, you know, somebody got shot from Valona over this, 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:40.760 and not exactly What did happen was that in two 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.240 thousand two, the director of Venezuela's coco buying network was 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.240 machine gunned in his car. There's no evidence it was 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.880 related to the battle for chihuah but Venezuela, along with 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.520 many other parts of Latin America, has come to lead 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.920 the world in violent crime and business. Even the chocolate 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.480 business can get caught up in it. The real lesson 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.280 of Chuao is that same companies were willing to go 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.719 to ridiculous lengths in an incredibly dangerous region. Simply to 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.640 tie up beans with great flavor because they knew that 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.480 flavor could set them apart. But why was that what 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.800 made those Chuao beings so special? Well, it certainly has 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.920 something to do with the valley, the rivers, the soil, 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.080 the trees themselves, But the real secret to Chua's greatness 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.920 it was those women handling the beans on the church plasma. 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.480 Maybe you've already figured it out. It all came down 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.560 to fermentation. How big a factor is the fermentation? Like 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.480 huge fermentation, man is definitely of the quality of the 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:46.400 final chocolate. Fermentation is critical. Okay, I know that word 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.000 has already popped up a few times, but believe it 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.440 or not, a lot of our story hinges on it, 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.560 and you're going to hear it again. Fermentation, fermentation, fermentation, 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.120 and again, what the hell is fermentation? This is the 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.040 first step the careful process of making the world's most 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.800 popular flavor. Just like grapes don't taste like wine, rock 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.559 at cow beans don't taste much like chocolate. You need 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.800 microbes to consume the raw material and transform it into 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.240 those wonderfully aromatic compounds. To cow seeds come out of 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.520 their pods covered in sweet sticky sugary pulp. When the 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.040 beans are removed from the pods, the sugary pulp surrounding 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.160 the bean begins to ferment. To keep up those beans 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.440 in a pile or put them in a wooden box, 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.880 wild geese in the environment will turn that sugar into alcohol, 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.880 and then bacteria will turn the alcohol into vinegar. The 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.520 acid breaks open the cells and the beans, spills the 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.800 contents together and initiates a lot of crazy chemistry. In 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.200 the process, heat is generated, and the overall effect of 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:51.640 this mild natural treatment is the development of a desirable 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:59.480 brown color of fine, full flavor. Within days, nutty, spicy, winey, fruity, 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.160 and laural notes appear from there. You just have to 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.560 get the beans nice and dried, give them a little 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:10.680 roast than a slow grind, and you've got chocolate because 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.240 of the ter war, because of how it's fermented, the 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.839 things in the air, the yeasts and the bacteria that 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.520 are contributing to fermentation, and the soil and all these 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.080 things you know you hear about in wine. You're going 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:26.480 to taste the same thing with chocolate. But fermentation is 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.400 a delicate art. You mess up the fermentation process, you 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.400 don't do the turns on time. You can get absolutely 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.920 disgusting coco out of great raw material. And what does 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.560 that taste like. It's more like mushroom rotten socks, or 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.760 ham chocolate or cheese chocolate. You get some really nasty flavors, 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:49.000 wet sock chocolate, compost chocolate. Most coco farmers just want 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:51.680 to get their being sold as quickly as possible, so 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.960 they don't take the time to do a proper fermentation. 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:59.600 Those beans will always be bitter and boring. But it's 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.800 the right decision for the farmers. Remember this is a 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:08.040 dirt poor commodity. Time is money. Why go to extra 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.080 steps to improve flavor if you aren't going to be 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.880 paid anything extra. But Chua was different. When the chocolate 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.840 from Chiuao developed, his great reputation in the fermentation was 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.679 practically a lost art. The women of Chuah were one 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.120 of the few groups doing it properly, and it showed. 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.200 But by the two thousands, demand for great cacao was surging. 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.400 A new wave of upstarts like Amada was cutting out 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.080 the middlemen, scouring the Americas for the next Chua, making 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.600 their own chocolate from the beans and raising the art 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:41.040 of chocolate to new heights, and although that first wave 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.480 was European, it stayed small until it reached the other 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.920 side of the Atlantic. There it found an eager market 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.520 obsessed with quality and authenticity, and it became a full 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.600 blown tsunami. But have them tastes like grocery store chocolate 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.200 at first. Then I'd have them taste three bars that 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.720 tasted like people would be like, yep, we're in we 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:04.160 love it. We had fifty bars, we went to a hundred, 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.920 and then a couple of years later we probably had 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.200 two hundred, and then you come full circle to today. 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.920 We have probably five fifty bars on the shelf. I 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:17.199 haven't counted in a long time modeling. Every gold rush 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:21.440 brings winners and losers, and the craft chocolate revolution was 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.080 no difference. A lot of dinosaurs fell by the wayside, 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.240 too slow to react to the shift and taste, and 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.960 a few nimble players rushed in to fill the gap. 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.280 Most surprising of all was a small Delhi in Salt 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.360 Lake City that came out of nowhere to become the 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:44.200 ultimate champion of wild chocolate. A Cinderella story. After the break, 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.000 I want to taste of some of this God level chocolate. 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.200 We Got You Covered. Kalia Scop has joined forces with 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.000 Louise Abram and Stetler Chocolate to make a special box 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.160 to go along with its very podcast Taste One has 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.360 driven many to near madness at www. Dot Stetler dash 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:27.960 Chocolate dot com. In the early two thousands, a lot 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.240 of Americans were having the kind of epiphany that Mark 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.520 Christian had at the Amide booth at the Chocolate Show, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:39.600 including Matt Caputo. I discovered that good chocolate shouldn't just 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:45.440 taste like burned material deluded with loads of extra fat 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.640 and vanilla. Matt's the owner of Caputo's Market in Delhi 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.200 in Salt Lake City, and today he's the top importer 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.400 especialty chocolate in North America. We now seld over three 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.600 thousand wholesale accounts everyone from Whole Foods to you know, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.360 your mom and pop cheese shop on the corener in 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.920 all fifty states. But back into a thousand, we basically 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.720 had a really similar set to what you'd see in 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:11.040 the grocery store, just cheap stuff that I found out 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.040 later didn't taste like cacao. One of my friends that 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.800 I respected really well just kind of said you know, man, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:21.040 your chocolate set is really embarrassing. Matt was crushed. Capudas 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.640 wasn't just a market, It was an extension of his 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.400 own personal tastes, a reflection of his abilities as a curator. 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:29.920 He knew he had to get up to speed, so 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.760 he embarked on a pilgrimage to the one place where 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.080 he might find enlightenment. The fancy Food Show in New 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.640 York City. I'm walking the aisles of the Italian Pavilion, 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.720 and man, those Italians wear suits so well, they're just 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.360 beautiful suits. All these dudes and suits and ladies in suits, 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.040 and so here I am, this punk kid in my 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.360 you know t shirt from Salt Lake City and just 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.720 standing at the counters patiently waiting for someone to talk 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.200 to me. Finally, a woman at one of the booths 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.360 to pity on him and sat him out at a 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.920 table and perform the ritual that has initiated many a 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.880 convert into the mystery cult of fine chocolate. She said, 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.400 I'm gonna let you taste these three chocolates. They only 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.800 have two ingredients, cocaw beans and sugar. She says, They're 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.480 all made on the same equipment with the same recipe. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:23.240 The only difference is where the cocow beans come from. 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.000 She says. This first one that you're going to taste 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.000 is from Ecuador, and you're going to notice that it 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.399 is very earthy and very nutty, and there's not a 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.720 lot of acidity. And so okay. I taste it, and 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.400 I'm just thinking to myself, like, wow, that's really uncanny 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:43.000 that that does taste like that. Now these beans, she said, again, 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.040 same ingredients, same percentage, produced on the same equipment, but 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.280 this time they come from the Samburano Valley of Madagascar. 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.160 This one will taste like fruit, like tart, raspberries and 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.320 and citrus. And I'm preparing myself for very slight differences. 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.200 I pop it in my mouth. It didn't taste like chocolate. 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.080 It tastes like fresh tropical fruit. I could feel myself 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.159 like falling down the rabbit hole, and I knew this 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.960 didn't taste like candy. This tasted like the food of 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:18.520 the gods. When he headed home, Matt immediately got Capuda's 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.560 up to speed. I spent the next year, let's say, 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.600 fleshing out our chocolate set, you know, say, picking the 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.200 twenty best producers that I had read about and again. 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.040 I did a lot of studying along the way, a 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.200 lot of talking to experts in the industry, and doing 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:38.560 a lot of blind tasting, like truly blind tasting. My 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:40.240 wife would actually help me. We would do it in 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.240 a pitch black room and taste like sixteen different chocolates 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.440 at a time. The standouts went on the shelf of 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:50.320 codas brands like on a day DOMI at the time, Um, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.159 those were the Italian ones, some of the French or 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:58.440 like Michelle quisel Bo, not Valona. Probably Sharpenburger was the 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.520 only American one at that time. I probably fleshed out 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.399 with about fifty bars, probably from about twenty producers, and 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.919 shelf kept getting bigger, and it probably took up instead 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.240 of two ft let's say, the new bars were a 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.520 lot prizier than the old ones, like ten bucks instead 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:21.480 of two. But to Matt's amazement, it didn't matter. All 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.280 he had to do was give customers one taste of 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.520 this brave new world, and they were loading up their 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.879 kurt with chocolate. Verst Viva La Revolution. Caputos was just 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.360 one of many stores across the States where that kind 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.800 of transformation was happening. In the mid two thousands, chocolate 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.359 could be an experience, and people were eager to have it, 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.800 to taste their way through Venezuela and Ecuador and the 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.359 Sambrano Valley, and websites like Mark Christians sprung up to 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:48.879 guide them. And then in the midst of all this 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:54.480 coco craziness, a new bar appeared. It was wild and refined. 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.240 It didn't taste like any of the others, not even close. 0:19:58.000 --> 0:19:59.920 While every other chocolate in the world was made with 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.359 cocao that had been domesticated and adapted to farms, this 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.360 was primordial and you're getting this taste of way back 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.639 when it's a time machine, and so unless you're the 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.320 age of like Methuselah or oldest Diamonds, even though had 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.920 anything like that before, nobody had. The bar had a 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.520 funny name. Instead of the ground Cruise of Valona and Bona, 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:27.639 this was Cruise Salvage Wild. It's time. It could not 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.000 have been better. It was about to become the buzziest 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.840 bar in the bush and dry Voker Layman even deeper 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:41.679 into the jungle in surger More the world. Gold raises 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.439 immediately the eyebrow of a person if you say, oh, 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.040 I have gold on my land, then everybody feels like 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.399 you're rich. But I know more people who got poor 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.800 than rich looking for gold. They didn't see the real 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:02.359 gold at for the break a whole hill of beans. 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.880 I never had a business plan then, like so many 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.160 tons and this, and then and then, and the full 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.480 blown business plan I never had. By two thousand five, 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.760 felsh Lean, the Swiss company that was making chocolate with 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.119 Vulcar beans, was so confident in the unique appeal of 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.639 crusavage that it was ready to roll it out at 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.160 full commercial scale. That meant no more cutes the experiments. 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.080 With four kilos, they needed as much as Vulgar could 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.040 possibly get. I said, yeah, okay, let's try with a 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.639 container first, and the shipping container holds fifteen tons of cacao. 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:02.760 That was the minimum Felshally needed to make the bars. 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:05.760 But for solo player like Vulcar, that's a huge hill 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.000 of beans. Ran Quila Dad could produce only a few tons. 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:11.200 The rest he was going to have to buy from 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.800 other harvesters in the region. Once again, he'd be navigating 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.439 land that was precious to some of the most dangerous 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:22.480 people in the world, ranchers, illegal loggers, and narcas, and 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:25.000 he was going to need a ton of cash. He 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:27.120 was going to have to build facilities in the rainforest 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.159 where the beans could be fermented to his specifications, and 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:31.920 he was going to have to spend all that money 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.479 many months before he'd finally get paid for the beans. 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:40.560 The biggest problem getting finance to get like dollars together. 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:43.280 So he asked specially into front him some dough and 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:46.200 they were not interested. They've been around for a hundred 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.240 years because they didn't let romance cloud their business vision. 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.760 They basically said, you get the beans, will pay you 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:56.080 a decent price, but the getting part that's on you. 0:22:57.040 --> 0:22:59.919 Eventually he scored alone from a Swiss company that special 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.520 liss and fair trade foods. They're getting me money, but 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:08.680 just on on my blue eyes. Yeah, and they said, okay, 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:20.760 we hope you'll come back with kak. You'll know that, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.880 How to do that? Well? For starters, he bought himself 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:27.520 a dirt bike and rode hundreds of miles across the range, 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:29.840 visiting the towns in the region that had to cow 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:32.800 and setting up buying posts. It was a rough ride, 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:35.880 but it was better than the horse. He hired people 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:37.760 to buy for him in each town and told them 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.080 to use tarts to keep the beans dry. But the 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:42.800 only types they had were moth eaten ones made from 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.359 cow and jaguar skins, so he flew a bunch of 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:47.600 new ones in from Santa Cruz and handed them out. 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:50.919 He kept in touch with everyone by short wave radio. 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:53.480 When the beans were ready, he drove his bike to 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:56.880 each town, loaded them onto a riverboat, and sent them 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.840 on a two thousand mile journey to Lapaz. Then he 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:03.000 lout la Pause and rented an old racquetball court to 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:05.360 use as a warehouse. He didn't sleep for a week 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:08.240 while he waited for the beans to arrive. Finally they 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:12.640 showed up. He immediately opened the sacks and not good. 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:15.480 About ten percent had turned moldy on the river trip, 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:18.560 so he hired eight people to help him, and they 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:20.159 spent the next two weeks on the floor of the 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:24.680 racquetball court sorting eighteen tons of tiny beans by hand. 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.120 When he had fifteen good tons, he packed them into 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:30.720 a container and trucked it over a fifteen thousand foot 0:24:30.800 --> 0:24:33.440 mountain pass and along some of the world's most death 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.040 defying roads to the sea, where a feeder vessel took 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:40.240 it to Panama and loaded it onto a giant container ship, 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:44.119 which carried it through the canal, across the Atlantic and 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:47.720 into port in Rotterdam, where yet another feeder vessel carried 0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:51.760 it up the Rhine to Switzerland, where at long last 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:57.040 felshly and transformed it into Cruisavage. It was an enormous feat, 0:24:57.680 --> 0:24:59.680 and soon the pros were getting their hands on their 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:03.720 first ours. One of them was Matt Capuda. I'm not 0:25:03.880 --> 0:25:07.040 exactly sure when I first heard of Cruisivage. You know, 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:08.959 you hear of a bunch of things. You don't at 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:11.359 first know what is going to turn out to be 0:25:11.520 --> 0:25:14.719 something legitimately super cool, or what's going to turn out 0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:18.040 to be something that's you know, marketing, smoke and mirrors. 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:22.040