We’re not crazy! There is a brand in this world that has gotten the rep of selling the world’s most expensive chocolate bars. (Each bar sells for upwards of $350)
We’re talking about the brand To’ak Chocolate, founded in Ecuador by two American expats, Jerry Toth and Carl Schweizer.
It can be hard to digest but you also need to remember that the way chocolate is being made today is truly atrocious. Cocoa farmers are paid poorly, there’s child labor involved and with an overwhelming demand and thin margins, brands have done everything in their power to cut costs. And hence, you’re left with a super sweet candy bar with a little bit of cocoa solids and vegetable fat.
Chocolate, which was once treated as a prized resource by ancient civilizations 1000s of years ago has now been reduced to a cheap commodity that isn’t even real chocolate to begin with.
And this is why To’ak Chocolate was born! It aims to change the mainstream narrative of chocolate by giving the same respect to chocolate as vintage wine, and aged whisky.
So what makes To’ak so damn expensive?
- The Discovery of 100% Pure Nacional Cacao: After the deadly fungal disease- Witches' Broom wiped out Ecuador's cacao plantations in the early 20th century, Nacional cacao trees were thought to be extinct. But they were re-discovered in Peru in small parts of the Amazonian forest in 2011. For some context, this variety of cocoa beans is known for its extraordinary flavor profile and is the MOST EXPENSIVE one! ($10,000 - $30,000 per metric ton)
The founder duo tracked down this ancient and rarest variety of cacao and forged strong networks with 14 cacao plantations in Piedra de Plata to exclusively source their cocoa from this valley. Now if you make your chocolate with such a prized variety of cacao, pay a premium to local farmers, and invest in sustainable cultivation practices, you have no option but to charge a bomb.
- Bringing Back Art & Craft Of Chocolate: The behind-the-scenes of making To’ak chocolate bar is what every bean-to-bar chocolate maker’s dreams are made of. Once they harvest the world’s rarest cacao, they ferment it in traditional wooden fermentation boxes for 5-7 days. They then sun dry the beans for another week and carefully roast them at low temperatures which helps bring out the nuanced flavor profiles of this cacao variety. After cracking, winnowing, and grinding, To’ak then ages their chocolate-like fine wine in wood casks.
The chocolate can be aged for months to years in various types of wood like Spanish Elm or Andean Oak, each imparting unique flavor characteristics to the chocolate. It's also important to note that they make chocolate in extremely small batches, sometimes as few as 100 bars. Now when you work with chocolate like this, the price of the finished chocolate bar shouldn’t be so shocking, right?
- The Luxury Experience: When each process of To’ak chocolate is so painstaking, you would only expect it to be handed to you in the best packaging ever. And this is exactly what the brand does. Each bar of To’ak chocolate is delivered in a hand-carved wooden box along with a tasting guide and a pair of tweezers to handle the chocolate.
With this, To’ak makes it clear that it's not about eating just another chocolate bar. It’s an experience that makes or rather compels you to think about what it takes to make real chocolate, the suffering of cacao farmers who are exploited to make commercial chocolate, and at last the difference they make in making the world a better place.
So, is it worth it?
A hundred and ten percent yes! As a bean-to-bar chocolate brand, To’ak is a huge inspiration. While we know the prices of To’ak chocolate bars are something most people can never afford, you can still give real chocolate a taste with Pascati. So even though we don’t make chocolates with the rarest variety of cacao, we do everything else that makes chocolate as real as possible.
Back to making chocolate now…
Team Pascati
