The Mind of TCHO

TCHO, as in chosen

“Yeah Hi, I’m calling from TCHO Ventures in San Francisco…. TCHO Ventures…. it’s a chocolate company, we have an account with you……how do you spell it? Uh, yea, it’s T-C-H-O….. no, T as in Tom, C as in, well, chocolate, H as in hat, O as in - ….right, TCHO….no it starts with a T, not a C….”

It feels phonetic enough to me, but then again, I work here. And I don’t spend much time on the phone, but I sit next to folks who do, so I get to hear them desperately trying to explain our name.

Jeremy, Zohara, Simone, and Matt have gotten “tee-cho” and “techo” from people who can’t swallow the T, “T-C-H-O” as if our name were an acronym, and the UPS guy who visits us every day—even after numerous attempts to correct him—still mis-pronounces it as “tekko.”

This difficulty of pronouncing TCHO is somewhat ironic considering that the word was initially used as a phonetic way to communicate ‘chocolate’ to visiting German technicians, and written on a sign on our door. The word on the sign on our door ultimately became our name.

More on that story forthcoming…

5.7 and 9 gram mold dies, Sexy! (SFW)

Wow!

Robert, from our mold making partners Micelli Chocolate Mold Company, just sent me these sweet pictures of the die for making our chocolate molds they just milled. So sexy!

Here is the positive for the 5.7 gram:

And the 9 gram positives are absolutely positively beautiful.

I revel in imagining how these positives will become the masters for which all the other respective molds will be made. And those molds will become the little crucibles that will shape the chocolate that will make so many people happy.

Faces

Back when we were starting Wired in 1991, the morphing section (by Carl Rosendahl and his Pacific Data Images) of this video directed by John Landis was state of the art:

Here's where we are today:

P.S. Although morphing hasn't lost its power:

Nutty for Google

TCHO Nutty debuted at SES (Search Engine Strategy) with Google Analytics in San Jose.

What great company for our little chocolate company to keep. We were a featured case study for Google Analytics and we look forward to continuing to use their great tools as we further develop our website.

Rob made a fabulous TCHO booth dude.

And of course we showered the floor with TCHObundance.

Thanks Google! We look forward to more fun in the future.

Roxie, the wonder dog

Roxie is an original. If you've ever got a chance to meet her, you know what I mean when I say she is truly special.

As my loyal and obedient doggie sidekick, Roxie was by my side practically every step along the way in forming the company.

She was right there, always, from the mundane everyday tasks to the most exciting times.

From chasing her tail, to just coming up to give you some love, she often brightens up our days.

Here are some a few selected images of Roxie in her official role as the Senior Company Mascot.

Here's Roxie helping inspect parts for the molding line when it first came in...

She also *loves* riding around with me on the forklift.

She also loves to dive into the projections...

Roxie was there helping Matt work the forklift the historic day we hung the factory disco ball.

...more Roxie blogging to come.

SMART!!

Well, we went and bought a Smart car, a Passion cabriolet. It has been quite the fun purchase. We saw plenty of Smart cars in Europe, and when I learned that they were going to be sold in the States as of January 2008, I was intrigued. Then I read a review of them sometime around that month and the reviewer was impressed.

It was after I saw this video, however, that I was sold on it.

It is a blast to drive, though it really is impossible not to laugh when seeing someone pull up in it. Plus, it comes in a convertible! Win-Win! :)

Most people who have never seen one think either a) that it's electric, or b) that it gets insanely good gas milage. Neither of these are true, though we haven't actually filled the tank yet and so have no real measurements. Anyway, it's a perfect city car and that's exactly what we need. Yay Smart!

Until then…

I just spent a great two months at TCHO. I came home from a less-than-perfect semester abroad in mid-June, slightly disenchanted. Disenchanted is a perfect word to describe what I was, because working at TCHO showed me that enchantment can exist even in the world of business.

I’m pretty sure that it comes across to our customers by the way we speak about TCHO at events, on the website, and on the phone to customers, but this place is a downright awesome place to work. I can’t wait for TCHO tasters (you) to come to the factory and take a tour, and get a little taste of what it’s like to work here.

Maybe some details would go well with this gushing. How’s this: there’s not one person I’ve met at this company that isn’t excited by working here. Honestly, the passion that every employee has for TCHO chocolate and what it stands for (to put it simply: making great chocolate, and making the world a better place) is completely visible and completely contagious.

Of course, every job has its boring moments (long afternoons of stuffing chocolate into envelopes or building gift boxes come to mind), but even these were shared with other employees (read: interns), and therefore infinitely more enjoyable.

In a purely TCHO tech-obsessed twist, I’m making this my goodbye letter to my wonderful colleagues at TCHO. I’m making it public to show everyone else who reads this blog that not only does TCHO make phenomenal chocolate, but behind that chocolate is an enthused, dedicated team of real people at Pier 17.

Of course, my “goodbye” is qualified by air quotes (until we get into video-blogging, you’ll have to make do with text quotes). I plan on bringing TCHO back to school, nudging my peers into tasting the difference between our chocolates, and holding pairing parties, as well as helping to tell the stories (via e-mail) that make TCHO the company that it is. And I’m sure I’ll be back over Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.

So until then, TCHOsen ones, it’s back to school (or whatever).

Blog From the Field

San Martin Peru, August 5th

When I stepped out of the plane and smelled the smoke from the burning of ground cover, I knew I was back in the cacao growing regions during the dry season and no longer in foggy San Francisco, or a congested Lima. Hitting the ground running, I spent the first day with our research partners hashing out how to bring some TCHO 'scrappy not crappy' innovation and technology to farmers so FRUITY is GREAT all the time. Just like wine is made from fermented grapes that vary from year to year, chocolate is made from fermented (and dried) cacao and will vary as well. Like our California wine maker neighbors, we are learning more about the variables so that we can work with them and make great chocolate each year.

I woke up feeling pretty good and secure enough to don my early edition "I AM FRUITY" t-shirt. That there are few english readers here would make double entendre jokes was helpful too! We headed out of town to the incredibly large and fertile Huayaga River Valley, think of California's Central or San Joaquin Valley, cacao production is flourishing as a result of new opportunities in the premium, organic and fair trade markets and TCHO is in the middle of it! We found a great Coop to work with, where really nice Trinitario cacao is being grown on rich fluvial soil, some on small islands. That combination of genetics and 'terrioir' creates the potential. It is the human factor, that brings that potential to life with the care with which the cacao is tended to, harvested, fermented, dried, selected and bagged for export. The opportunity for TCHO to work with and support these farmers and make "Fruity" come to life makes it all worth while.

Next posting from the land of NUTTY....

Who likes vinyl? Licorice pizza anyone?

What are you listening to these days?

I have about 2000 record albums, 45s, and some 78s due to the fact that there has never been a bin of used records at thrift stores, flea markets or garage sales that I could walk past without looking through and the album artwork was so seductive that I just had to take something home. More often than not the cover was the only good thing, but that didn't stop me. I also had a task at hand in the 80's of providing pre-show music for Survival Research Laboratories' performances so that also kept me digging.

Here's a few I grabbed off the shelf:

OK—Les Baxter is the songwriter who penned Quiet Village, covered by many, and made so famous by Martin Denny that it's almost his middle name. Les "discovered" Yma Sumac, the Peruvian Inca Princess with the 8 octave voice. He also did a killer sountrack for the film "The Man With the X-ray Eyes" starring Ray Milland.

Jungle Echos is a percussion Africa-splotaiton album. Drumming with grunting and screaming:

No collection is complete without the Mexican wizard Esquivel—lounge at it's best.

I have a bunch of Cugat—many of his recordings are tame vanilla sort of stuff but "Mambo!" rocks. Great cover. This is the LP cover that inspired my son's name.

Here is an earlier Cugat release—one of the best...

Emundo Ros was big in England in the 50s-70s—Playtime in Brazil is one of my all time favorites.

What's not to like about Latin Love-In? Here Emundo is making a stab at what was happening in the 70's. The cover is a lot better than the music.

Perez Prado, El Rey del Mambo—I was introduced to him by my parents on a 4 song 7" 45 with Mambo #8 and Mambo #5.

I like organs—Hammond B3, Wurlitzer, Farfisa—and here Mark Laub cranks out some memorable tunes including a great version of "Brazil". Just look at how he dances on the keyboard. This is an autographed cover. Score!

This is Lucia Pamela who single-handedly or vocally albeit moves from Entertainment to Irritainment. You can use this to move along dinner guests who overstay.

The World of Willie Restum fits into the Irritainment category. Autographed copy. Shabada!

If the guests are still there after Lucia Pamela and Willie Restum then you can sell them this one.

Most of Ferrante and Teicher's music is the most schmaltzy junk you'd never want to hear. However in the 50's they were doing prepared piano pop, kinda John Cage pop music. Some truly wonderful pieces. One cut was sampled in the Tipsy track "Ugly Stadium."

Awesome cover:

Enoch Light did some wacky pop music. Project were really good recordings. Nothing says "it's the 70's!" like this cover.

Lord Shorty is a wild calypso guy who does a really risque song "To Kill a Cat." BTW There is only one of him not 3. According to the liner notes he also did the cover. Sweeeet!

I like much of the 3 Suns output and "Movin' N' Groovin'" is in one of my favorite categories: "Early Stereo." When stereo first came out it seems everyone was trying to "out stereo" each other. Much of the time the result was similar to a film director who learns of the zoom lens. No slouch here, this record does have "sound your eyes can follow."

Steve Allen was actually a very good piano player—for those who even know who Steve Allen was—talk show host, actor, song writer and ad man for Mocha Mix

Let's go Slavic with Andy, Bob Nick and Ned:

Gardel is "The King of Tango" no doubt. Along with Alfredo Le Pera he wrote "Mi Buenos Aires querido" and others. Tragically, Gardel died in an airplane crash at the height of his career. A large statue of him stands outside the Abasto Market in Buenos Aires.

I like Tango a lot and I love this cover.

And I really like this cover:

Early Stereo.................

Really good Muzak. Did I mention I collect LP covers? This one's a 2fer; got the muzak and the artwork.

This cover says it all:

Here was a cool find from San Francisco Records in 1957—I included some close ups:

Person, Place or Thing (Chicago)

This is for Miriam. She's tall, occasionally from Marin, and crazy for an interesting drink.

While Samantha and I were staying in Chicago, we were introduced to the "Blue Moon" cocktail by my friends Jo and John. Delicious...and goes perfect with a rooftop garden.

Samantha and the Blue Moon.

Blue Moon Cocktail
(makes one cocktail)
2 oz gin
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice (strained)
1/2 oz Creme de Violette
ice

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon and some blueberries.

On Jo and John's rooftop.

How we spent the rest of our time in Chicago.