Cuna de Piedra: Mexican Cacao, Made in Mexico, with Mezcal and Smoked Chile Folded In
Chocolate is Mexican. The tree was domesticated in the Americas, the Olmec and Maya drank it in what is now Tabasco and Chiapas three thousand years ago, and the Aztecs paid taxes in the beans, as our chocolate history recounts. And then, for five hundred years, the value of that history went elsewhere. Mexico grew cacao and exported it; Europe and later the United States made the chocolate, took the price and kept the name. Cuna de Piedra, a small maker in Monterrey in Mexico's industrial north, exists to reverse that arrangement: cacao from the regions where chocolate began, made into finished bars in Mexico, flavored with the two ingredients Mexico does better than anyone on earth, mezcal and chile. This is the producer guide to the three bars on our shelf.
The idea
The name means "cradle of stone," and the reference is to the metate, the stone slab on which cacao has been ground in Mexico since before the Spanish and on which it still is in Oaxacan markets. Cuna de Piedra's argument is that Mexico should not only grow the world's oldest cacao but make the chocolate from it, and that the flavors added should come from the same country rather than from a European pastry tradition. The bars are bean-to-bar, made in small batches, and they name the growing region rather than the country. It is the same instinct that drove the makers in our Amano and Dandelion guides, applied at the source.
The cacao
Two regions appear on the wrappers. Comalcalco, Tabasco, on the humid Gulf coast, is the heart of Mexican cacao growing and the site of a Maya city whose people were drinking chocolate when the pyramids there were new; the region's cacao is grown in the shade of larger trees on small farms and has a deep, earthy, slightly fruity character. Soconusco, Chiapas, on the Pacific side near Guatemala, is the region the Aztecs prized above all others and taxed hardest; it was famous for fine cacao in the sixteenth century and is being revived by a new generation of growers. Both are origins with two thousand years of reputation and, until recently, almost no bars to their name.
The three bars
Comalcalco, Tabasco, 73%, with Reposado Mezcal. Dark Tabasco chocolate with reposado mezcal, the agave spirit rested in wood for a few months. The mezcal is not wet in the bar; it is absorbed and its smoke, agave sweetness and faint oak run under the cacao. The bar to serve with a copita of the same, or with a dark coffee.
Soconusco, Chiapas, 73%, with Joven Mezcal. The Chiapas cacao with joven, unaged, mezcal, which is brighter, greener and more smoky than reposado. A sharper, more mineral bar; tasted beside the Tabasco it shows both the difference between two cacao regions and between two ages of mezcal.
Comalcalco, Tabasco, 73%, with Smoked Chile. The Tabasco cacao with a smoked heirloom Mexican chile. The heat arrives late and mild, the smoke first, and the combination is the Aztec drink, cacao and chile, made solid. Break it into a pot of drinking chocolate for the most historically correct cup you will ever make, or shave it over a bowl of black beans.
How to taste them
Chile bar last; its smoke and heat linger. Start with the Soconusco joven, bright and green, then the Comalcalco reposado, rounder and oakier, then the smoked chile. Let each melt before chewing, because the mezcal and chile are in the fat and release slowly. Water between. If you have mezcal in the house, a small pour alongside the two mezcal bars is the pairing the maker intended and is remarkable. If you do not, a strong black coffee or a dark bitter aperitif does the job.
Why it matters
The craft chocolate movement began as a project of makers in rich countries buying beans from poor ones and adding value at home, and it has been slowly correcting itself. Makers at origin, in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Taiwan, now make some of the most interesting bars in the world and keep the value where the trees grow. Cuna de Piedra is Mexico's clearest example, and the fact that its bars taste of mezcal and smoked chile rather than of vanilla and sea salt is the point: this is chocolate made by the culture that invented it, in its own language. The three bars are on our chocolate shelf at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com, near the Mexican-style drinking chocolate that is their ancestor.
