| Founded: | 2007 |
| Headquarters: | San Francisco, CA |
| Style: | New School |
| Characteristics: | Digital cool |
| Ferment: | medium-high |
| Roast: | outsourced, along with grinding, to a 3rd party, thus only partially bean-to-bar |
| Conche: | still experimenting (compensates with excessive lecithin) |
| Impact: | Cocoa – the science project: ‘Tcho’ stands for TechCHOcolate, the brain-child of an ex-NASA technician supposedly hooked up to computer models, gas chromatography, & mass spectrometry. Very little in its production output, however, speaks of any whizbang per se that other barsmiths aren’t achieving either intuitively &/or thru current state-of-the-art technology (much of which has barely changed in any fundamental way for decades). In other words, Tcho practices tried ‘n true old school market-positioning to woo consumers & critics alike. By merely naming something such hardly makes it necessarily so. The concept is promising, sound, & exciting enough to hope that Tcho actually reaches it.
With that understood, the company does engage in an enlightened direct-trade practice it calls TchoSource Program that goes well beyond Fair-Trade & other certification models. |
Crown Jewels
