bittersweet symphony

bittersweet
symphony
the 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
A
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best life
February 2009
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).
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
courtesy of br ad kintzer
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
out exploring the planet—bushwhacking
through Venezuela, swatting mosquitoes in
Panama, exploring the jungles of Ghana—
in a quest for cocoa beans worthy of topshelf 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-inchthick 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
Party Like Montezuma
Many chocolate aficionados insist on taking their chocolate in liquid form
It 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 Aztecstyle 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
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 handground 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 awardwinning 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,
BestLifeOnline.com
93
Gym candy
to the rescue
How chocolate gave me a better
workout and cured my writer’s block
by douglas coupland
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 hourlong 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
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best life
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.
February 2009
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.
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 bar
The 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
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
Java
Palmira
65 percent cocoa,
single origin, Indonesia
64 percent cocoa,
single origin, Venezuela
Manufacturer:
Chocolat Bonnat
Manufacturer:
Valrhona
Taste: Made from
criollo beans (the
least bitter kind of
dark chocolate), this
is a rare dark milkchocolate bar with
high cocoa content.
It’s both creamy and
deeply chocolaty.
Taste: Crafted from
criollo beans, this
smooth cocoa bar
exudes honey and
nutty notes.
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.
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 Nibs
Madagascar
Soconusco
Extra Dark
Nocturne
70 percent cocoa, single
origin, Sao Tome and
Principe
70 percent cocoa,
single origin
75 percent cocoa,
single origin, Mexico
82 percent cocoa,
blend
91 percent cocoa,
blend
Manufacturer:
Amano
Manufacturer:
Askinosie
Manufacturer:
Scharffen Berger
Manufacturer:
E. Guittard
Taste: Featuring
very rare criollo
beans grown in
Madagascar, this
bar delivers vivid
fruity flavors with a
lingering chocolaty
taste.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
About: Based in
Springfield, Missouri,
the nearly two-yearold brand practices
fair trade to source
beans from which
it produces its own
cocoa butter, adding
no emulsifiers such
as vanilla.
About: Started
in 1996, this brand
specializes in smallbatch bars made
from top-quality
beans shipped to its
kitchen in Berkeley,
California.
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 singleorigin bars. b . c .
WHERE TO BUY: Find these bars at gourmet grocery stores and online at chocosphere.com and bittersweetcafe.com.
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 antioxidantrich 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 rainspattered two-lane. Kintzer and Hermelink
begin speaking chocolatese, and I realize
just how intricate the process can be.
The Science of Chocolate
Scientists 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
Continued on page 108
BestLifeOnline.com
95
bittersweet symphony
Continued from page 95
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 California at San Francisco. Engler has published
several articles on dark chocolate’s hearthealthy ­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 Chocolate
A 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
like an entirely different chocolate; it’s citrusy
and bright, the flavor equivalent of the highhat 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.
chocolate
has a reputation
as an aphrodisiac.
Montezuma
is said to have
fueled his
orgies with up
to 50 cups of
chocolate.
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 coarsehaired 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 cocoagrowing 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