Dandelion Chocolate: The San Francisco Factory That Made Single-Origin a Household Word, and Its Six Origins on Our Shelf
In 2010, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring had just sold the software company they founded and were looking for something to do with their hands. They bought a few sacks of cacao, roasted them in a garage in San Francisco, and made chocolate from a single farm's beans with nothing added but sugar, to find out what it would taste like. It tasted like a place. Within a few years Dandelion Chocolate had a factory and café on Valencia Street in the Mission, with the roaster, winnower and melangers in full view of the counter, and it became the place where a large part of the American public first learned that chocolate, like wine and coffee, has origins. This is the producer guide: the founders, the rule, the farms and a tasting order for the six bars on our shelf. Our bean-to-bar process piece explains the machines they put in the window.
The founders and the factory
Masonis and Ring brought a technologist's habits to a craft: measure everything, document the process, publish the results. Dandelion's sourcing reports name the farms, the cooperatives, the prices paid and the fermentation methods, which was radical in a trade built on commodity anonymity. The Valencia Street factory opened in 2012 and was designed to be watched; a second, larger factory followed on 16th Street, and cafés opened in Japan, where the brand has a devoted following. The company still makes only dark chocolate from two ingredients, roasts and conches every origin to its own profile, and treats the wrapper as a label of origin rather than a brand.
Two ingredients, one origin
Every Dandelion bar is cacao beans and organic cane sugar from a single origin, usually a single cooperative or estate. No vanilla, no lecithin, no added cocoa butter, no blending across farms. The point, as our single-origin guide explains, is that a blend averages out what makes a bean interesting, and an addition covers it. The maker's job is to choose a roast and a conche that let each origin be most itself, which is why a Dandelion Belize and a Dandelion Tanzania at the same 70 percent taste like different foods.
The six origins on our shelf
Maya Mountain, Belize, 70%. The bar Dandelion built its reputation on. Beans from a cooperative of small farmers in southern Belize, fermented centrally by the cooperative's own team. Bright red fruit, honey, a clean acidity. The origin to taste first, and our fermentation piece uses centralized fermentation like Maya Mountain's as the model of how it should be done.
Maya Mountain, Belize, 85%. The same beans with less sugar. The fruit is still there, darker and sharper, and the bar is the best argument on the shelf that a high percentage does not have to be bitter if the bean is good.
Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania, 70%. From a fermentary in the Kilombero Valley that buys wet beans from hundreds of smallholders and ferments them itself. Bright, tart, citrus and berry; one of the most vivid origins in African cacao.
Costa Esmeraldas, Ecuador, 70%. A family farm on Ecuador's northern coast growing Nacional-type cacao. Deeper and rounder: brownie, molasses, a nutty finish. The origin for people who find fruity chocolate too sharp.
Semuliki Forest, Uganda, 70%. Beans from the edge of the Semuliki rainforest in western Uganda. Earthy, with cocoa and a hint of smoke and spice; a more savory bar that pairs well with a dark bitter aperitif.
Tumaco, Colombia, 70%. From the Pacific coast of Colombia, near the Ecuadorian border. Caramel, dried fruit and a soft finish; the gentlest of the six and a good gateway.
A tasting order
Taste from bright to deep, as with wine: Kokoa Kamili, then Maya Mountain 70, then Tumaco, then Costa Esmeraldas, then Semuliki, and finish with the Maya Mountain 85 to see what the sugar was hiding. Break, listen, let a piece melt on the tongue before chewing, and clear the palate with water and a plain cracker between bars. Six people, six bars broken into squares, a card for each, and twenty minutes is a tasting party; our tasting guide has the vocabulary and our tinned fish tasting the format.
Why it matters
Dandelion did for chocolate what the specialty coffee movement did for beans a decade earlier: it put the farm on the label, published what it paid, and made the process visible enough that customers understood what they were tasting and why it cost more. A good deal of the craft chocolate shelf, including the makers our craft chocolate guide covers, exists in the space the Valencia Street factory opened. The six origins are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. Buy two of the same origin from different makers and taste what the maker adds; that is the second lesson, and Dandelion would approve.
