Sourcing Cacao: Finding Beans We Love

On a recent podcast episode, Logan shared about how we source our cacao – and why that first step matters so much. He also told stories from our trip to Guatemala and Belize, where we met cacao farmers, toured fermenterias, and got our hands deep into the harvest and post-harvest-processing – which felt like equal parts science, art, and alchemy.

You can listen to the podcast below and read the key points of the discussion further down in this blog post.

Great Chocolate Starts with Great Cacao

There are about eight steps between a cacao pod and your finished chocolate bar – but none are more important than the very first one: choosing which beans to work with. You can’t fix poor-quality beans with great roasting, a dialed-in grind, or even the best sugar in the world. That’s why we spend work so hard at sourcing – since a lot of the flavor begins before we ever turn on the roaster.

This spring, we spent most of the month of March (peak cacao harvest season!) in Guatemala and Belize to learn more about post-harvest processing, fermentation techniques, and cacao genetics. Farmers talked with us about how they’re growing for flavor, resilience, and varietal purity, and how they’re preserving heirloom lines while adapting to climate and market pressures.

Fermentation, which typically lasts 6 to 7 days, is where flavor precursors start to develop. Later on, roasting brings those compounds to life. In two-ingredient chocolate like ours, the fermentation step is key – it sets the stage for every flavor note to follow.

Genetics, Flavor, and the Joy of Specificity

Cacao genetics fall into three broad categories: heirloom varietals, high-yield commercial types, and hybrids of the two, and each of those branches into dozens of subtypes. We look for beans that highlight flavor notes we love, like floral, fruity, nutty, woody, or earthy. 

While terroir (climate, soil, & environment) shapes how those flavors are expressed in chocolate, the biggest drivers of cacao flavor are genetics and post-harvest practices – especially fermentation. Think of a Malbec grown in California versus one from Argentina: both are distinctly Malbec, but each expresses itself differently depending on where and how it’s grown. Cacao is the same. Terroir adds nuance, but the genetic foundation and fermentation steps are what create the building blocks for complex flavor.

And just like wine, a lot happens in the space between harvest and final form. For cacao, that’s the post-harvest window – fermentation and drying – where raw seeds are transformed into something capable of becoming delicious chocolate. These steps are as critical as winemaking is to grapes, influencing acidity, texture, aroma, and balance. Fermentation, in particular, develops flavor precursors and amino acids that will later bloom during roasting. So by the time the beans reach us, lots of their flavor potential has already been set. Our job is to protect, express, and elevate what’s there through careful roasting, grinding, and conching. We can’t invent flavor that isn’t present in the beans to begin with, but we can coax out nuance, refine texture, and showcase the qualities we love most.

That’s why we focus on sourcing from specific farms and cooperatives growing varietals we’re excited about. We want to share the full spectrum of what cacao can be and offer – flavors that are vibrant, complex, sometimes surprising, and that tell the story of their origins in every bite.

Building Relationships, Not Just Supply Chains

We’re not big enough to buy whole shipping containers of beans direct from the farm – (though with your help we can get there!) – so we work with sourcing partners that can help us buy a half dozen 100-lb bags of cacao at a time from any one origin. On our March trip, we visited five farms, three of which were introduced by importers we trust. We also reached out to a few farmers ourselves directly. And we got to have real conversations with farmers and their families about what they’re experiencing, what their goals and challenges are, and what matters most to them. Our sourcing partners work with cacao cooperatives that share transparent pricing data, uphold better-than-fair-trade labor standards, and center farmer livelihoods and local communities.

The big problem in “big chocolate” is the length and transparency of the  supply chain. Commodity cacao beans can easily pass through more than five intermediaries before ever reaching a chocolate maker. These long and inefficient supply chain erodes margins at every step, leaving the growers with too little return for their labor. And when there’s not enough juice in the orange, that’s when exploitative labor models like child labor and forced labor can take root.

Our approach to ethical trade is simple but powerful: We want to know exactly who is growing our cacao, and we want to keep the path from them to us as short as possible.

For us, this gets to the heart of going “beyond fair trade” in our work. It’s not just about certifications – it’s about real relationships and taking personal responsibility for the ethics and standards in our supply chain.

Weather, Markets, and the Rise of the Caldera Blend

The global cacao market is wildly volatile right now. A historic drought in West Africa – where the majority of the world’s cacao is grown – has sent prices to soaring 40- to 50-year highs. Even though we source from Central and South America, we still feel the ripple effects of global supply and demand.

To adapt, we’ve started carefully developing house blends – like our current go-to 72% dark Caldera Blend – that let us stay nimble while making chocolate that’s consistent, ethical and packed with the flavors we love. 

Our Caldera Blend is made from three to five of our favorite origins, and the exact blend shifts a bit from 50-lb batch to 50-lb batch as harvests throughout Latin America ebb and flow. Our goal is to highlight the best parts of the cacao tasting wheel available to us in any given season – whether that’s berry and fruit notes, warm spices, herbs and florals, or earthy richness. Some beans shine at higher percentages, while others pair beautifully with inclusions. Each origin plays a specific role – and we adjust our recipes based on quality, availability, and what’s inspiring us that season.

The goal with our Caldera Blend is to keep making great chocolate even when nature throws curveballs. It makes it possible for us to respond to real-world climate and market shifts, while making chocolate that feels true to who we are and what we believe in: flavor first and farmer-forward.

Local Collaborations and Local Flavor

We love weaving Montana into our chocolate story. Some of our favorite recent collaborations include:

Tea-infused bars with Steep Mountain Teas. Our beloved Chai Ginger bar features a custom version of their Storm Castle Chai. Over the winter, we also did a Tea & Honey flavor made with oolong, honey, and a sprinkle of bee pollen that became a fan favorite. (Good news – it’s coming back in September, better than ever!)

Coffee chocolate made with Treeline Coffee. Their vibrant roast profiles play beautifully with the natural notes in our base chocolate – rich, warm, and satisfying – and the coffee adds a nice hint of crunch.

Smoked nib chocolate with Grotto Meats, kings of cold-smoking, who offered to give our nibs this extra and unforgettable kick unlike anything we’ve had before. The result is chocolate that combines smoky depth, crunchy nibs, and sweet dried cherries – basically your dream charcuterie board addition.

These kinds of collabs let us play, explore, and bring more local soul into the chocolate we love. Our local “foodie community” is incredibly inspiring and supportive, and we truly wouldn't be able to do this  – nor would we enjoy his journey so much – without them!

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Thanks for reading – and thanks for being curious about where your chocolate comes from! If you have questions or thoughts, we’d love to hear from you. And if you want to check out the whole podcast episode, you can listen here (or wherever you get your podcasts).

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