bittersweet symphonythe quest for BLACK goLd: riding shotgun with A ChoCoLAte hunter into the

jungLes Around LAKe niCArAguA, digging into the heALth CLAims ABout dArK ChoCoLAte, And sAVoring the BeLugA CAViAr of CoCoA BeAns

By miKe KessLer i photogrAphs By jAmie Chung i prop styLing By BriAn Byrne

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After an hour of Steve McQueening over a washboard-and-pothole-strewn Costa Rican one-lane, Hugo Hermelink feathers the brakes of his Nissan Patrol, stops the SUV at the end of a dirt drive, and jumps out to open a gate. I’m riding in back, grateful to be in one piece as the vehicle comes to a stop; the guy sitting shotgun is thrilled too. “This must be Hugo’s farm,” he says, turning toward me to reveal an irrepressible smile. “You’ve seen a cocoa tree, right?” My answer, which is no, only bolsters my travel mate’s excitement. His name is Brad Kintzer, and he’s a chocolatier for the Berkeley, California–based Artisan Confections Com-pany, which consists of the boutique brands Dagoba, Scharffen Berger, and Joseph Schmidt, all three of which were bought by the Hershey Company three years ago.

When Kintzer isn’t in the Bay Area making chocolate in a kitchen lab, he’s

BEAN TOWN Cocoa beans at the Hermelink farm near Guapiles, Costa Rica (left); fresh cocoa pods (center); most pods hold about 40 seeds, which are covered in a sweet-tasting slime (above); Brad Kintzer inspects a sapling (right).

out exploring the planet—bushwhacking through Venezuela, swatting mosquitoes in Panama, exploring the jungles of Ghana—in a quest for cocoa beans worthy of top-shelf bars. And right now, just outside the town of Guapiles, Kintzer has a target in his sights. He points to an oblong, ribbed cocoa pod on a tree a few meters away; its stem is so tiny that the fruit appears to be glued to its host. I’ve read that cocoa pods resemble miniature footballs, but this thing looks more like a creature from some Jim Henson underworld, ready to sprout limbs and break into song. “This is where it all starts,” says Kintzer, pointing to the pod. “Fruit from this farm will wind up in a chocolate bar that I make.”

Moments later, the three of us stand on Hermelink’s 270-acre farm, which his family has owned and operated since moving here from Holland in the 1980s. In the past 30 years, he has built a reputation as one of the best cocoa farmers in the world—as well as a world-class dirt-road driver. A light drizzle patters the leaves as Hermelink, rail-thin and six feet four inches tall, pulls a ripe red pod from a tree and cuts open its half-inch-thick shell with a pocketknife. Inside the bisected fruit are 30 to 40 seeds, each the size of an almond and concealed in a white slime. Without hesitation, Kintzer takes a slippery morsel in his fingers, pops it into his mouth, and instructs me to do the same. The goop is sweet, like liquid meringue, and has a distinct, bright citrus note; it tastes like it has been marinating in orange juice. When it’s clear that I’ve de-slimed my seed, Kintzer tells me to bite into it. The taste is repugnant, like coffee grinds and dirt, and I spit the seed out immediately. What I’ve just

tasted, explains Kintzer, are cocoa solids and cocoa fats brimming with bitter and astringent alkaloids. “The seed’s bitterness is a Darwinian survival mechanism,” he says. “Throughout history, animals have spit out the seeds, leading to the proliferation of wild trees. Eventually, humans figured out how to plant and nurture those trees.”

Until today, Hermelink (who is 47, with an agricultural engineering degree) and Kintzer (31, botany) have known each other only via e-mail and reputation. Both are major players in the fast-growing culinary cult of fine dark chocolate. Cacao DNA, single-origin beans, Monila pod rot…these are subjects that inspire passion and interminable dialogue among guys like Hermelink and Kintzer, with whom I’ll be traveling for most of the week. Aficionados grade chocolate in a way similar to wine and can taste the differences based on where the beans are grown, what

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kinds of beans are used, the duration of fermenting, the intensity of roasting, the ratio of cocoa to cocoa butter, and the length of conching (the process by which chocolate paste is stirred to achieve the desired texture). After touring Hermelink’s cocoa farm and seeing the chocolate-making process up close, we’ll head north to Upala province, near Lake Nicaragua, where Hermelink and a cooperative of local farmers—partly funded by a grant from Dagoba—are in the process of resuscitating the area’s virtually defunct, but potentially profitable, cocoa economy. Best-case scenario: Kintzer will find evi-dence of an ancient strain known as criollo (pronounced kree-oh-yo), which, if grown and processed correctly, can yield some of the finest chocolate on the planet.

The recent hullabaloo about chocolate—particularly dark, or bittersweet, chocolate—is as impossible to ignore as a gang of marauding Oompa Loompas. It started in the early 2000s with a handful of studies suggesting that dark chocolate—meaning chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa—is rich in antioxidants that can open and

strengthen arteries and add some tock to everyone’s ticker. Suddenly, after centuries of existence as the guiltiest culinary pleasure—an edible version of Hall and Oates, if you will—chocolate’s reputation took a turn for the better. But not everyone in the medical community is convinced. Some doctors believe chocolate companies are exploiting the rash of new data as a means to fatten profits, while putting at risk those who now think they have a license to gorge on the calorie-rich food. Muddying the matter further are products such as CocoaVia and Dove Vitalize, which are touted as lab-tested heart-healthy medicines.

The science dropped at the perfect time for the chocolate business, which has been enjoying a renaissance in the past few years. Americans spent $2.05 billion on premium chocolate in 2006, a 129 percent increase from five years earlier, and the sector is projected to grow 73 percent by 2011, according to market-research firm Mintel. Remember the rise of specialty coffee? The microbrew craze of the early ’90s? The Sideways-inspired pinot noir boom? The

artisan cheese madness that has given birth to boutique fromageries from Brooklyn to Seattle? High-end chocolate has joined the ranks of these indulgences. Indeed, a millennia after Amazonians drank hand-ground cocoa powder from what are believed to be the original cocoa trees, five centuries after Montezuma allegedly guzzled the stuff like it was liquid Viagra to impress and impregnate his harem, 130 years after the Swiss made it their signature treat, a century after Milton Hershey set up shop in Pennsylvania, and 37 years after Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka scared the crap out of Charlie and Grandpa Joe, the dessert world’s favorite naughty treat is more ubiquitous, and better tasting, than ever.

“All the rules about chocolate-making have been tossed in the air,” says Alice Medrich, a Bay Area chef and author of three award-winning chocolate cookbooks. “It’s not that we’ve abandoned conventional wisdom, but chocolatiers are being more adventurous.” Sample the inventory of any upscale grocery store and see for yourself. There are the classic brands such as Valrhona, Chocolat Bonnat,

Party Like MontezuMamany chocolate aficionados insist on taking their chocolate in liquid formit wasn’t until the mid-1800s that brits created the first chocolate bar. Prior to that, humans drank chocolate, dating back as far as 1100 b.c. the aztecs guzzled a thick, coarse concoction consisting of ground cocoa nibs, ancho and chipotle peppers, regional spices, and water, says brad kintzer, a chocolatier with the artisan confections company. Legend has it Montezuma downed 50 cups on some days. “the aztecs poured the mixture from one cup to another to create a nice, rich foaminess,” says kintzer. “supposedly, it was so thick that a mixing spoon would stand straight up.” kintzer makes his from scratch, but various companies now make premixed aztec-style versions, such as dagoba’s spicy Xocolatl Hot chocolate (dagoba.com) and Vosges’s sweeter aztec elixir (vosgeschocolates.com). b e n c o u r t

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and E. Guittard, plus newer chocolate houses such as Amano, Dagoba, and Tcho. (See “The Best Chocolate on the Planet” on page 95 to discover seven outstanding bars.) Many of the bars infuse flavors such as coffee, mint, chili powder, sea salt, and even bacon.

To make the abundance of choices even more mind-boggling, manufacturers now display their products’ cocoa content (dark chocolate starts at about 60 percent) and sometimes trumpet health claims on their packaging. It’s enough to turn any chocolate lover into a bona fide addict, a victim of information overload, or, simply, a lard ass. “There’s a lot of great chocolate out there,” says Kintzer, “but there’s suddenly a mountain of data to wade through and that can be confusing.” In Kintzer’s mind the health claims are secondary to taste. A self-proclaimed food nerd, Kintzer is a guy who eats up to half a pound of chocolate every day, raises and slaughters his own pigs, and concocts homemade sauerkraut the way Hawkeye Pierce made bathtub gin. “Good chocolate is about good flavor,” he says. “Flavor, flavor, flavor. And flavor has to start at the source.”

FroM bean to barThe soothing morning drizzle is giving way to a raucous storm. Fat raindrops slam into the canopy with the urgent staccato of pebbles on a sheet-metal roof. Hugo’s farm has 140,000 cacao trees, representing six varieties of

Theobroma cacao (cacao is Latin for “food of the gods” and is interchangeable with the word cocoa), but none of them are keeping us dry. These particular trees produce fruit of the trinitario strain, which accounts for about 15 percent of all beans worldwide. Trinitario is essentially a combination of the original criollo strain (about 1 percent of all cocoa beans) and another strain called forastero (about 80 percent of all beans; it is abundant in West Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia). Trees range from about eight feet to 25 feet in height and require constant pruning for optimal light and the prevention of disease.

During the two harvest seasons—June to July and December to January in Costa Rica—pods are collected from the trees and transported to the processing area by way of a pulley-and-bucket system. Special equipment removes the seeds from the pods and places the seeds into wooden fermentation boxes. During fermentation, the seeds, which are now referred to as beans, turn from white to brownish white on the outside, and from purple to chocolaty brown on the inside. The white, slimy, sugary pulp is degraded with the help of microorganisms and then drains away. During the six- to seven-day process, the microorganisms create heat and the beans remain moist, much like a pile of compost. They smell of yeast and warm, ammoniac wet earth. As Hermelink and Kintzer explain the

CHOCOLATE FACTORY Cocoa trees are susceptible to disease and require constant pruning to remain healthy. Here, agricultural students from a college in Upala prepare saplings to plant at Hermelink’s farm.

how chocolate gave me a better workout and cured my writer’s block b y d o u g l a s c o u p l a n d

three years ago, i had a bout of writer’s block that dragged on for months. to fix it, i took a holistic approach and began going to the gym five times a week. after six months of hitting the gym, the writer’s block went away…sort of. i wasn’t back to where i had been, and i was depressed, as writing is my living.

in those six months at the gym, i began to notice that i got the legendary exerciser’s endorphin rush only (if at all) around the 45th minute of my hour-long workout. on the other hand, the gym’s trainers seemed to get high as kites after a minute on a treadmill. i thought this over and asked my trainer, neil, if he knew of any vitamin or protein thingy, or anything else i could eat before coming to the gym, that might catalyze a quicker endorphin rush. He said he’d ask his wife, an Md. i wasn’t getting my hopes up, but it seemed plausible that some kind of supplement would help. Like many of us, i’ve visited the protein superstores, and while i haven’t embraced that world, i don’t think it could exist if there weren’t some science behind it all.

the next day, neil came to me with an answer: chocolate.

chocolate?His wife was unsure,

but something in her studies suggested it would be worth trying. so i did, but not with the standard checkout-counter chocolate. i went for that bitter, almost scientific-tasting black stuff sold at upscale food places. after all, i wanted the chocolate molecule, not the sugar and other stuff loaded into candy.

did it work?yes. i found myself

not exactly getting high on endorphins, but my stamina (especially on the elliptical machine, my particular enemy) went berserk. from a grudging 15 minutes at low levels, i found i could blast through an hour on the elliptical feeling jazzed at the end, not tired and old.

i’m a cynic, so i was suspicious rather than surprised and happy. this had to be a coincidence. so i ate chocolate before going to the gym for the

next two weeks, and then the third week i stopped. and…i was back to the same old endorphin-starved brain i’d had before. a week without chocolate and i was back to where i’d started. so i began to eat chocolate again, and—wham!—i was reddy kilowatt.

i found the effect to be essentially push-button easy, and the best time to eat chocolate is an hour before hitting the gym. it’s good advice, and i hand it to anyone who’s trying to reinvigorate his or her gym visits.

but the strangest thing in all this was that my writer’s block went away. in a flash. from being a sluggish nonproducer, i became speedy and verbal. the relief was remarkable.

i thought back to when my writer’s block began. i’d been having some heartburn back then, so i had removed foods from my diet that i thought might be bad for the condition. but instead of going online to learn which specific foods, i chose them the lazy, stupid way: by myself. so acidic foods such as grapefruit juice and orange juice were eliminated as well as, you guessed it, chocolate. so not only did i get physical benefits from my chocolate discovery, but i was also able to solve a mystery.

since then, anytime i meet a writer i ask if he or she has any ritualistic foods. the successful ones all eat dark chocolate.

frankly, i hate the taste of the stuff these days. in my mind, it’s no longer a food but a medicine. and when the thought of one more dark-chocolate start to the day is too much, i’ll switch to chocolate bars, which aren’t as efficient and have all that junk in them. sometimes i’ll try kozy-shack chocolate pudding (which my doctor tells me is the number one favorite food of people undergoing elective cosmetic procedures). but even pudding gets dull after a while. i wish they’d put chocolate into a tasteless capsule form, but that is possibly one of the most perverse things you can do with one of nature’s most delicious foods. People are funny creatures indeed.

GyM candyto the rescue

Java65 percent cocoa, single origin, Indonesia

ManuFacturer: Chocolat Bonnat taste: Made from criollo beans (the least bitter kind of dark chocolate), this is a rare dark milk-chocolate bar with high cocoa content. It’s both creamy and deeply chocolaty.

about: Founded in 1884 in Voiron, France, Bonnat is a boutique chocolatier that focuses on single-origin bars and uses the finest cocoa and pure cocoa butter.

Palmira64 percent cocoa, single origin, Venezuela

ManuFacturer:Valrhona

taste: Crafted from criollo beans, this smooth cocoa bar exudes honey and nutty notes.

about: Valrhona, which was founded in France’s Rhone Valley in 1922, built its reputation as a high-quality artisan chocolate source for confectioners and chefs.

Dark Chocolate With Nibs70 percent cocoa, single origin, Sao Tome and Principe

ManuFacturer:Claudio Corallo taste: Nutty and cherry-flavored amelonado forastero beans mingle with the bitter crunch provided by cocoa nibs (the grain of the bean) in this rustic-style bar.

about: Using sustainable farming techniques and traditional recipes, this Italian chocolatier has been making artisan chocolate for the past decade two islands off the west coast of Africa.

Madagascar

70 percent cocoa, single origin

ManuFacturer:Amano taste: Featuring very rare criollo beans grown in Madagascar, this bar delivers vivid fruity flavors with a lingering chocolaty taste.

about: Amano is situated in Orem, Utah, high in the Wasatch Mountains, and although it was founded in 1996, it uses 1930s equipment to make its award-winning small-batch chocolate.

Soconusco75 percent cocoa, single origin, Mexico

ManuFacturer:Askinosie taste: Produced using trinitario beans grown in Mexico’s Chiapas state (the primo cocoa-growing region for the Aztecs in the 1500s), this full-bodied bar is rich, earthy, and bold.

about: Based in Springfield, Missouri, the nearly two-year-old brand practices fair trade to source beans from which it produces its own cocoa butter, adding no emulsifiers such as vanilla.

Extra Dark82 percent cocoa, blend

ManuFacturer:Scharffen Berger

taste: A blend of trinitario beans from Trinidad, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Madagascar, this three-ounce bar has only eight grams of sugar (similar bars have between 12 and 17 grams), so it’s intensely bittersweet.

about: Started in 1996, this brand specializes in small-batch bars made from top-quality beans shipped to its kitchen in Berkeley, California.

Nocturne91 percent cocoa, blend

ManuFacturer:E. Guittard

taste: Blended using seven cocoa beans from Asia, Africa, and Central and South America, this medium-bodied bar exudes dark cherry and intense chocolate flavor.

about: The oldest family-operated chocolate company in America, E. Guittard was founded in San Francisco in 1868 and is known for both blend and single-origin bars. b . c .

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process, two rubber-booted workers shovel beans from one box to another so that they ferment evenly. Hermelink has me stick my entire arm, from fingertips to shoulder, into a pile of fermenting beans. The center must be 110 degrees or more.

After a week of fermentation, the beans are dried by the sun or a machine and then hauled to the cocoa factory at the farm. Here, they are roasted, shelled, and ground into a thick paste called cocoa liquor (it’s nonalcoholic). Some manufacturers insist on doing this part of the process themselves, so the beans are shipped to kitchens in Europe and America.

“It’s such an exacting science,” says Kintzer. “If you ferment for too little or too much time, you could ruin an entire batch. Likewise, you need to roast beans enough to bring out flavors, but not so much that you burn off the flavors. There are so many variables,” he says as we stand around the machinery wearing white surgical scrubs. “It’s almost impossible to truly replicate a chocolate.”

About three weeks after the pods have been pulled from the trees, giant blocks of

raw, dark, bitter cocoa liquor are ready to be shipped to buyers. If the liquor is the result of sophisticated fermentation and roasting, more of its antioxidants may remain intact. If it’s mass-produced, like the liquor used in a conventional Mars or Hershey bar, then you can kiss the antioxidants good-bye. Many large-scale manufacturers use “the Dutch process,” adding alkali to the nibs prior to roasting, which reduces the bitterness, modifies the chocolate flavor, and makes the cocoa powder mix better with water, but it also neutralizes the flavonoids.

Finally—and most often at a larger com-pany’s factory—chocolatiers add to the liquor two more primary ingredients: sugar and cocoa butter (the fat pressed from the cocoa bean). Typically, the higher the ratio of cocoa liquor to sugar and cocoa butter, the darker, more bitter, and more antioxidant-rich the chocolate; the more cocoa butter, milk, and sugar you add, the lighter, smoother, “milkier,” and less healthful the chocolate. These days, most dark-chocolate bars are labeled according to their cocoa

content; think of it as equivalent to the proof on an alcohol bottle. But, as Kintzer is quick to point out, “that percentage on a wrapper signifies anything that comes from the cocoa bean—meaning cocoa butter, cocoa powder, or cocoa solids.” In other words, he explains, a high percentage of cocoa doesn’t necessarily guarantee an antioxidant boost.

Dashing through the tropical downpour from the processing area to Hermelink’s SUV, Kintzer attempts to explain the intricacies of sugar-to-cocoa ratios. “It’s as complex as brewing beer or making wine,” he says. We jump into the car, and Hermelink expertly negotiates ribbons of potholes as we leave the farm, heading north on a rain-spattered two-lane. Kintzer and Hermelink begin speaking chocolatese, and I realize just how intricate the process can be.

the science oF chocoLateScientists have been studying cocoa’s benefits for years, but it’s only in the past decade that they’ve begun to understand its potential as a superfood, when it is processed the right

the best chocoLate on the PLanet

indulge your senses and expand your palate with these seven outstanding dark chocolates, selected by a panel of the world’s top chocolatiers

PaneL: Clay gordon, chocolate critic and author of Discover Chocolate: The Ultimate Guide to Buying, Tasting, and Enjoying Fine Chocolate and the blog chocophile.com; michael recchiuti, founder of san francisco’s recchiuti Confections (recchiuti.com); Alice medrich, author of three award-winning chocolate cookbooks, including Cocolat and Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales From a Life in Chocolate

Where to buy: find these bars at gourmet grocery stores and online at chocosphere.com and bittersweetcafe.com.

Continued on page 108

way. Patient zero—or in cocoa’s case, tribe zero—is the Kuna Indians, an indigenous group, some of whom live on Panama’s San Blas islands. They are known for swilling five cups of unprocessed cocoa daily and for having outstanding coronary and vascular function. Norman Hollenberg, MD, PhD, a chocolate expert at the Harvard Medical School, has studied the Kuna for almost 20 years, and his research details how the island-dwelling Kuna have significantly lower rates of heart disease and cancer compared with their brethren who live on Panama’s mainland and drink less cocoa. The relative risk of death from heart disease on the Panama mainland is 1,280 percent higher than on the islands, and risk of death from cancer is 630 percent higher on the mainland, according to his study, which was published in the International Journal of Medical Sciences in 2007.

Other scientists, inspired in part by the remarkable health of the Kuna, have investigated dark chocolate, and a survey of the scientific literature of the past decade reveals a wide range of benefits. Research shows that dark chocolate can improve heart health, lower blood pressure, reduce LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, decrease the risk of blood clots, and increase blood flow to the brain. Furthermore, dark chocolate fuels the brain in four other ways: It boosts serotonin and endorphin levels, which is associated with improved mood and greater concentration; it’s rich in B vitamins and magnesium, which are noted cognitive boosters; it contains small amounts of caffeine, which helps with short-term concentration; and it contains theobromine, a stimulant that delivers a different kind of buzz, sans the jitters.

The majority of these benefits are attributable to cocoa’s off-the-scale anti-oxidant content, in the form of the flavonols catechin and epicatechin. The abundance of these chemicals also explains the variety and complexity in the different flavors of chocolate. Dark chocolate’s oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) rating—the standardized measurement of antioxidant content—is 20,823 per 100 grams, according to the USDA’s Nutrient Data Laboratory. In comparison, blueberries score 6,552; Red Delicious apples (with the skin), 4,275; broccoli (raw), 3,083; and spinach (raw), 1,515. Cocoa flavonols can also temper platelet activity and activate endothelial nitric oxide.

These benefits encompass the entire cardiovascular system in profound ways. “The antioxidants we call flavonols keep your pipelines open and flexible,” says Mary

Engler, PhD, a chocolate researcher and the director of the cardiovascular and genomics graduate program at the University of Cali-fornia at San Francisco. Engler has published several articles on dark chocolate’s heart-healthy properties. “Flavonols get rid of the things that make your arteries rusty, and increase arterial capacity and strength.”

Engler’s research explains why chocolate also has a reputation as an aphrodisiac (Montezuma is said to have fueled his orgies with up to 50 cups of chocolate). In fact, chocolate affects the same process that is stimulated by erectile dysfunction drugs, although at a different phase. People who ate 30 calories a day of dark chocolate saw their systolic blood pressure drop an average of 2.9 mm Hg (which itself increases arterial blood flow) and experienced increased nitric oxide production (which makes blood vessels dilate, enhancing blood flow) after 18 weeks, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2007. (ED drugs stimulate nitric oxide production by suppressing the enzyme that switches off the brain’s time-specific signal to activate nitric oxide production.)

On the surface, it all makes perfect sense. Dark chocolate has antioxidants; antioxidants are good for you; therefore, dark chocolate is good for you. But Dr. Hollenberg advises caution. The Kuna, he says, consume a less processed, more antioxidant-rich type of cocoa than what the rest of us eat or drink. Everyday chocolate, he says, has been processed into uselessness. “Everything we do to make chocolate taste good actually strips the cocoa of its health benefits,” he insists. Dr. Hollenberg recently wrote an editorial in the heart journal Circulation, refuting the thesis that it’s the “dark” in dark chocolate that makes it good for you, and calling for flavonol levels to be displayed on the wrapper rather than the cocoa percentage. While Dr. Hollenberg is partly correct—processing can indeed strip the good stuff from cocoa beans—it should be noted that his research has been partly funded by Mars.

Clearly, there’s a certain amount of spin going on. “Look,” says Steven Nissen, MD, chairman of the department of cardio-vascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, “we have to consider a simple question: Is the available research truly sound?” The answer, he says, is no. “The available science suggests some benefits of cocoa flavonols, but it does not prove anything. It’s kind of a cutesy story that’s easy for people to misinterpret. The available science should not be debunked, nor should it be hyped. It is interesting, but it is not definitive…yet.

Researchers would have to follow thousands of people for several years and see if those people suffered heart attacks, strokes, or other cardiovascular ailments.”

But the likes of Engler, Dr. Nissen, Dr. Hollenberg, and even a spokesperson for the American Heart Association agree on two things: Dark chocolate should be eaten in small quantities, and it should not be a substitute for antioxidants found in other healthful sources such as green tea and colorful vegetables and fruits. Mehmet Oz, MD, professor of surgery at Columbia University and the director of the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York–Presbyterian Hospital, breaks it down like this: “I’d tell a consumer what I’d tell my family. Eat the right kind of chocolate—around 70 percent cocoa content or higher. And never eat more than an ounce and a half—about 150 calories—a day.” Yes, he says, “You can eat a square or two of dark chocolate every day and still be healthy, as long as it’s one component of a dietary routine that complements other thoughtful components and a regular exercise regimen.” With that in mind, Dr. Oz is quick to jettison the science talk and address the component of chocolate that makes everyone love it so much: flavor. “You don’t get to eat much of it, so you better enjoy it,” he says. “Put it on your tongue. Let it sit there. Savor it for what it is. It’s fine dark chocolate, and it tastes like nothing else.”

adventures in chocoLateA few hours and a hundred-odd miles north of the farm, we stop for the evening at a roadside hot-springs retreat. We take a quick dip and then convene for a tasting. Kintzer dumps a bag of Dagoba and Scharffen Berger chocolates onto a table and fans them out in order of cocoa content, which ranges from 58 percent to 100 percent. “This one,” he says, unwrapping a two-ounce bar of Dagoba, “is an unusual forastero varietal from Ecuador, called Nacional. Forastero has that classic brownie flavor. But this one has some floral notes too.” I raise the dark square to my mouth, and Kintzer stops me. Fine dark chocolate, he says, should be rubbed with your thumb, sniffed like a fine wine, and coveted for complex characteristics such as nuttiness, coffee notes, and fruitiness. And so I rub. And sniff. And covet. Then I put a small piece on my tongue and wait for it to melt. Yes, I agree, brownies. Very rich, not too bitter. It’s hard to discern the flowers, I admit.

Next up is a 65 percent bar made from Madagascar-grown trinitario beans. It tastes

BITTERSWEET SyMPhONy Continued from page 95

like an entirely different chocolate; it’s citrusy and bright, the flavor equivalent of the high-hat in a disco song. Kintzer explains that trinitario is a hybrid of forastero and criollo. “Criollo is very complex and can have a lot of rare, fruity flavors,” he says. “Forastero is more common and typically simpler, but people love that classic taste.”

We spend the next hour sampling chocolates that range from borderline milky to face-scrunchingly bitter. I learn that cocoa grows in a 20 percent latitudinal band north and south of the equator, and which countries produce the most cocoa (Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Indonesia), and which ones produce the best organic stuff (Dominican Republic, Madagascar, Costa Rica, and Peru). Kintzer talks about his chocolate-hunting adventures in Central and South America, West Africa, and the Caribbean. Next up are trips to Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.

When I ask him if all the travel—all the close inspection of cocoa pods—is truly necessary to the trade, Kintzer practically spits goopy chocolate on me. “Chocolate is only as good as your intimacy with the source,” he says with absolute certainty. “Everything from the soil it grows in to the placement of the fermentation troughs can inform the process of making great chocolate.” It’s as if I’ve asked Indiana Jones why he didn’t just order up artifacts off eBay. I’m taught that origin and varietal are important, but that, ultimately, a bean is only as good as the processing it’s put through.

Finally, we sample Eclipse, a near-perfect 87 percenter that is deeply fruity with a chocolaty base, and a 100 percent bar called Prima Materia (less bitter than I expected and strangely satisfying). The connoisseur will nibble it straight, but most people will cook with it or make a chocolate fondue and dip strawberries in it, explains Kintzer. All told, we chomp through about two pounds of chocolate, and when we sit down for dinner, I opt for a simple green salad.

the GoLden bean? Hermelink is keeping us on a tight schedule: up at 6 a.m. after the chocolate tasting, a quick breakfast, and back into his Nissan Patrol for the three-hour speed run to Upala. Look at a map of Central America. See Lake Nicaragua? Now go half a mile south. That’s us, on the Costa Rican side of the border, traipsing around some farmer’s five acres, which is more like an overgrown jungle backyard, rife with cocoa trees and coarse-haired sloths. Within five minutes, I see three of the raccoon-sized creatures nestling amid the red pods. A man named Giovanni, one of several farmers who have joined us, climbs halfway up a tree and plucks one of the herbivorous beasts for me to inspect. Big claws. Surprisingly muscular. I wouldn’t mess with it, even though it moves as if it’s on OxyContin and looks like it needs a hug.

We walk on and follow what has become the day’s standard operating procedure: Inspect trees and pods for signs of health or disease, engage in wonkish dialogue about the cocoa-growing merits of certain microclimates, split cocoa pods with machetes, and snack on the slimy white seeds. At one point, I see Kintzer on a small log bridge, wielding his machete and holding a cocoa pod. “Look at this,” he says. “This is very unusual.” He calls for Hermelink, who comes over to investigate—the ridges, the bumps, the red-yellow color. It all indicates that this is a healthy criollo pod, or at least a close sibling. Kintzer machetes the fruit, sucks the slime off a seed, and spits it out. “The seed is very light in color,” he says, barely able to contain his excitement. “That’s a telltale sign of a very rare type of cocoa.”

On the way back to the car, Kintzer pulls aside one of the farmers who has joined us and explains, in broken Spanish, the potential of the cocoa trees surrounding us. “If this has the same genetics as a criollo,” he says, “the co-op could get a very good price. We might be able to have a very good relationship if this fruit can live up to its potential. It’s important that you look after this plantation carefully.”

I realize that Kintzer’s quest is to make chocolate the right way and to make it taste so great that it won’t matter if it’s good for you or not. “People are eating organic, dining at restaurants that serve locally produced foods, and really considering where their food comes from,” he says. “For the first time in a long time, we’re really thinking about what we put into our mouths. The fact that chocolate has some health benefits is great, but for me, it’s most important to think about quality. Quality of beans, quality of processing, and ultimately, flavor.” Then we walk back to the car, pile in, and head back on a road so bumpy, only Hermelink can make it feel smooth. n

ChoCoLAte hAs A reputAtion As An AphrodisiAC. montezumA is sAid to hAVe fueLed his orgies with up to 50 Cups of ChoCoLAte.