Six Dandelion Chocolate bars in their kraft paper wrappers laid in a row on a pale wooden table with a small map of the world beneath them, pins marking Belize, Tanzania, Ecuador, Uganda and Colombia, and a few cacao beans

Dandelion Chocolate Guide: Two Ingredients, One Origin

Published 9 Sep 20265 min read

Filed under Chocolate Bars Dandelion Chocolate California

In 2010, a couple of years after selling Plaxo, the software company they had co-founded, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring started making chocolate. They bought cocoa beans online, along with a toaster oven and a melanger, and began experimenting in a borrowed garage in Silicon Valley, making chocolate from beans and sugar alone. Within a few years Dandelion Chocolate had a factory and café on Valencia Street in the Mission, in a former auto repair garage, with the production area open to view from the café. The How Bean-to-Bar Chocolate Is Made guide explains what the machines do, from the roaster to the melanger.

The founders and the factory

The Valencia Street space was still a working auto shop when the founders took it on, and they built it out so that customers could watch the chocolate being made. Dandelion also has a factory on 16th Street, and cafés in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Tokyo. Starting in 2014, Dandelion published sourcing reports naming the producers it bought from and the prices it paid.

Two ingredients, one origin

Every Dandelion single-origin bar is cocoa beans and organic cane sugar from one origin: sometimes a single estate, sometimes one fermentary buying from hundreds of farms. No vanilla, no lecithin, no added cocoa butter, no blending across origins. The roast is set origin by origin, light for Semuliki Forest and medium for Costa Esmeraldas. The idea, as the Single-Origin vs Blended Chocolate guide explains, is to let one origin's character come through on its own. Dandelion's Belize and Tanzania bars are both 70 percent, and the maker describes one as brownie and strawberry, the other as guava and fudge.

Two ingredients also make the label easy to read. With nothing but bean and sugar in the bar, a 70 percent bar is 30 percent sugar, and an 85 percent bar is 15 percent sugar, half as much. The percentage on a Dandelion wrapper tells the taster exactly how much of what they are eating is cacao.

The origins

Maya Mountain, Belize, 70% (shop Maya Mountain, Belize 70%). Beans from Maya Mountain Cacao, a social enterprise that buys wet beans from about 450 organic farmers in Toledo, southern Belize, and ferments them centrally. Dandelion's notes: brownie, strawberry, fresh cream. The How Cacao Is Fermented guide covers centralized fermentation of the kind Maya Mountain uses.

Maya Mountain, Belize, 85% (shop Maya Mountain, Belize 85%). Beans from the same source with less sugar. Dandelion's notes: cocoa powder, Greek yogurt, strawberry tea.

Shop Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania, 70%. From Kokoa Kamili, based in the village of Mbingu in southwestern Tanzania, which buys freshly harvested beans from local smallholder farms and ferments them in a central facility. Dandelion's notes: guava, Turkish yogurt, fudge.

Shop Costa Esmeraldas, Ecuador, 70%. From Freddy Salazar's estate on Ecuador's northern coast, a 10-hectare farm and cocoa-processing facility that he and his family built on land once reachable by no road. Dandelion's notes: s'more, toasted almond, blueberry.

Shop Semuliki Forest, Uganda, 70%. Grown near Bundibugyo in western Uganda by roughly 1,000 organically certified farmers. Dandelion's notes: ripe tropical fruits, honey, milk chocolate.

Shop Tumaco, Colombia, 70%. From the Tumaco region on Colombia's Pacific coast, where Cacao Hunters works with local farmers.

Six origins at a glance

Bar	Where	How the beans reach the fermentary	Dandelion's notes
Semuliki Forest 70%	Near Bundibugyo, western Uganda	Roughly 1,000 organically certified farmers	Ripe tropical fruits, honey, milk chocolate
Kokoa Kamili 70%	Mbingu, southwestern Tanzania	Fresh beans bought from local smallholders, fermented centrally	Guava, Turkish yogurt, fudge
Maya Mountain 70%	Toledo, southern Belize	Wet beans bought from about 450 organic farmers, fermented centrally	Brownie, strawberry, fresh cream
Costa Esmeraldas 70%	Northern coast, Ecuador	One family estate with its own processing facility	S'more, toasted almond, blueberry
Tumaco 70%	Pacific coast, Colombia	Cacao Hunters working with local farmers	Dark chocolate cake, whipped cream, roasted peanut (taste blind first)
Maya Mountain 85%	Toledo, southern Belize	Same source as the 70%	Cocoa powder, Greek yogurt, strawberry tea

A tasting order

Read down the maker's notes and a path appears, from fruit and honey toward baked and toasted flavors. Start with Semuliki Forest, where the notes are tropical fruit and honey, then move to Kokoa Kamili for guava and fudge. Maya Mountain 70 comes next, brownie and strawberry, then Costa Esmeraldas, s'more and toasted almond. Taste Tumaco fifth on a blank card, so every taster writes their own notes before comparing. Finish with the Maya Mountain 85 to taste the same origin with less sugar, and look for the strawberry thread that runs through both Belize bars.

Break each square and listen for a clean snap, 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. The How to Taste Single-Origin Chocolate guide has the vocabulary, and the tinned fish tasting guide has the format.

Same origin, different maker

The Craft Chocolate Complete Guide covers the wider field of makers working from single origins. The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com. For the next tasting, set two bars of the same origin from different makers side by side and taste what each maker brings.