C-spotters,
Madre Chocolate (Spanish for ‘mother’) released its inaugural bars last year. They were so promising &, moreover, positively inventive (Triple Cacáo with pulp, or the maple-likeness of rosita flowers also known as Cacahuaxochitl) that the C-spot™ presented them in the lineup for the Smithsonian symposium Chocolate: From Mayan Worship to Modern Wonder.
Since then their equipment has been upgraded, their techniques have improved & by all accounts so too their bars.
Founders Nat Bletter & David Elliot recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for their current project in Chiapas, Mexico. Together they share a serious intent to help revitalize traditional ways of cacáo — some extending back to pre-Columbia times — for a vitally important area in all of chocolate lore. Efforts such as theirs create the real momentum behind the C-spot’s™ motto ‘Welcome to the Retro-Revolution of Chocolate’.
To help spread the word, re-printed below is a circular explaining the project’s goals. In keeping with The 4th Law of Chocodynamics, please remember that whatever you got can help a lot.
5 good reasons to back our campaign to bring chocolate back to its roots:
- You’re helping Chiapas cacao growers eliminate potentially toxic pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers from their farms and get a higher value for their cacao for their efforts.
- You’re spreading the word about the amazing chocolate recipes and spices of Central America, from the people who invented chocolate! Who knows, they might have another delicious food like chocolate up their sleeve that might disappear if their knowledge is not preserved.
- You help fix the imbalance in current chocolate making where the cacao farmer in the developing world gets only a few dollars per pound for their cacao while all the money is made in the West.
- For your pledge, you get delicious rewards like a chocolate bar designed just to your tastes and whims, a personal chocolate tasting, spending a day in the chocolate shop in Kailua with us, a trip to Mexico with us to hunt for cacao, or limited edition chocolate bars available nowhere else made from the sought after Criollo variety of Aztec Royal cacao of Xoconusco mixed with rare aromatic spices and flowers from Oaxaca like rosita de cacao, orijuelas, pixtle, and flor de mayo.
- You help a small artisanal chocolate company whose chocolate has already gotten some great recognition and praise get off the ground and bring their chocolate to a wider audience, which continually helps Central American cacao and spice growers.
We’d love it if you could take a moment to watch our kickstarter video, made by the great local filmmakers Chop Chop Media, and learn how we’re bringing chocolate making back to its roots in the prized Aztec cacao growing region of Xoconusco, Chiapas, Mexico. As Dave and I traveled in late June down from Oaxaca, where most of the chocolate is made in Mexico currently, to Chiapas where the cacao is grown, we traced the tasty chocolate combinations and traditional recipes we found from Tejate, to Cacao de jaguar, Cacahuaxochitl, Achiote, and Atole. If you can pledge to help us support these cacao and spice farmers, as a reward you’ll get to sample all these amazing flavors rarely tasted outside of their origins in Southern Mexico while feeling good that you’re supporting the rich cultural heritage of chocolate in its birthplace, its tierra madre in Central America!;
Mucho mahalos for your help & amazing support,
Nat & Dave
Madre Chocolate Flavormeister & Chocolate Maker
