So we have a marketing issue. We've innovated a new taxonomy for tasting chocolate, because the current "dark" or "percentage cacao" or "terroir/genetics" models seem insufficient to connecting consumers to the flavor the bar they are tasting. We created a flavor wheel to represent this taxonomy. And we designate our bars by the inherent flavor of the cacao we are using. Indeed, we use this taxonomy to source our beans, to create our formulations, to roast, and to refine, so that at the end, our chocolate is the purest expression of those flavors we can make.

The biggest hit [of The New York Chocolate Show] to our minds was the San Francisco-based company Tcho, who cut a clear swath through the sometime mystery of single-origin (it takes a while to immediately recognize Madagascar) with a flavor-profile approach, offering the choice of nutty, fruity, chocolatey, and citrusy. It sounds simple, but it absolutely works, and after the exhaustion of tasting so many different bars and truffles and types, was the perfect – and perfectly packaged - close.

What Chocolate Really Tastes Like.
TCHO chocolates are the pure
flavors of cacao. There are no nuts
in our “Nutty,” nor fruit in “Fruity.”
As with wine, what you taste is
precisely, and only, what’s in the
fruit itself. Because we believe
that flavor – not vague terms
like “dark,” “% cacao,” or “origin” –
is the real key to savoring chocolate.

Then we started to think – if we had some marketing money to spend, what kind of a campaign would we create to get this message out? With a tip of our hat to Steve Jobs and his Think Different campaign that appropriated all the heros of the 20th century to help Apple when it really needed it, herewith . . .

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the USA. More than 26 million non-institutionalized adults are diagnosed with heart disease. Over 1.25 million Americans suffer a heart attack each year...

Chocolate Is Associated with Lower Mortality Following First Myocardial Infarction [MI]

Amount of chocolate consumption was related inversely to cardiac-related mortality during an 8-year follow-up 

Several studies have suggested that chocolate, perhaps in a process mediated by its antioxidant content, protects the heart (JW Gen Med Jul 10 2007 and JW Gen Med Sep 23 2003). A Swedish team identified 1169 nondiabetic patients who were hospitalized with initial nonfatal myocardial infarctions. Detailed food histories for the preceding 12 months were completed by 86% of patients; participants were followed for an additional 8 years.


Compared with patients who never ate chocolate, those who ate chocolate less than once monthly suffered 27% less cardiac-related mortality (after multivariate adjustments); risk was 44% lower for weekly chocolate eaters and 66% lower for those who ate chocolate two or more times weekly. Nonfatal adverse cardiac events, strokes, and total mortality, however, were not related clearly to chocolate consumption. Consuming other sweets (e.g., cookies, cakes, ice cream) had no relation to cardiac mortality. 



Comment: The strengths of this study are its size and long-term follow-up. The main weakness is that chocolate consumption was assessed only once, during hospitalization for initial MIs, and not during follow-up.

To me, the most interesting result of the study is that chocolate strongly protected against cardiac mortality but not against adverse cardiac events. The same finding has been reported for ω-3 fatty acid supplements, which suggests that the primary beneficial effect of both chocolate and ω-3 fatty acid supplements is in suppressing arrhythmias. 

— Anthony L. Komaroff, MD 

Published in Journal Watch General Medicine September 3, 2009 



Citation: 
Janszky I et al. Chocolate consumption and mortality following a first acute myocardial infarction: The Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program. J Intern Med 2009 Sep; 266:248.[Medline® Abstract] 



Copyright © 2009. Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. 


A growing body of scientific research has shown dark chocolate has a wide range of health benefits relating to: antioxidant activity, blood pressure, cognition, cardiovascular health, immunity, cholesterol, diabetes, anti-inflammatory effects, stress reduction, and mood elevation – even tooth decay, if you can believe it.

We are gearing up to launch a blog specifically focused on the myriad health benefits of chocolate.

Visit us regularly to stay informed on the latest research (in case you needed one more reason to make TCHO part of your daily ritual)!

more great news for us chocolate lovers...

Dark chocolate could be stress buster
By Jane Byrne , 16-Nov-2009
Related topics: The Big Picture

Daily consumption of 40 grams of dark chocolate for two weeks can reduce stress and benefit metabolism and microbial activity in the gut, claims scientists based at the Nestle Research Centre.

In a study published in Journal of Proteome Research the Lausanne based researchers said their results show that eating dark chocolate daily reduced stress hormone levels in those who had high anxiety levels.

The authors maintain that there is growing pool of evidence pointing to the potential health implications of dark chocolate constituents, with the flavonoids in cocoa linked to better cardiovascular health through the maintenance of low blood pressure, improved endothelial function, and a reduction in thrombotic, oxidative and inflammatory states.

However, they claim that the mechanisms of action of chocolate bioactive components at the molecular levels are poorly understood, particularly in the case for benefits related to brain health and improvement of stress states where only symptomatic data, such as brain blood flow, are available

Study
The researchers said that, in order to evaluate the metabolic changes associated with dark chocolate consumption they looked at the effects of eating 40 grams of dark chocolate every day for two weeks on blood and urine measures of stress in 30 healthy adults.

They explained that they used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS) to study changes in metabolism, and that the subjects completed psychological questionnaires, to enable them to be grouped into low and high anxiety traits.

Half of the chocolate was eaten mid-morning and the other half was eaten mid-afternoon, according to the study.

The authors stated that they took urine and blood plasma samples from the participants at the beginning, halfway through, and at the end of the two week study.

Results
The researchers said the results show that they were lower levels of stress hormones in the samples at the end.

“Dark chocolate reduced the urinary excretion of the stress hormone cortisol and catecholamines,” they reported.

The authors conclude that subjects with higher anxiety trait had a distinct metabolic profile, and that this profile was indicative of a different energy homeostasis, hormone metabolism, and gut microbe activity, and that dark chocolate also partially normalized stress-related differences in energy metabolism and gut microbial activities.

Source: Journal of Proteome Research

Published online ahead of print: DOI: 10.1021/pr900607v

Title: Metabolic Effects of Dark Chocolate Consumption on Energy, Gut Microbiota, and Stress-Related Metabolism in Free-Living Subjects

Authors: S. Kochhar et al

Last week we shipped our 3rd FlavorLab! This time to Peru. The shipment comprised of six boxes, 109 kg of TCHOSource technology innovation and commitment.

Our FlavorLabs are key component in our highly cost-effective program to make lab-scale chocolate making accessible to those who hadn’t had access to it before. The FlavorLab is our way of empowering our producer partners by putting them “in-the-loop” by enabling producers to make the connection of how changes and variations in post-harvest processing can greatly affect quality and flavor.

TCHO FlavorLabs have the same basic configuration we use everyday at Pier 17 to conduct both physical (levels of fermentation, bean size and count, etc) and sensory analysis (taste, acidity, bitterness, flavor, etc) of the beans. This tool allows our cooperative partners to better understand the true value and potential of their cacao: quality and flavor.

We are seeing success quicker than we had anticipated. The partners of our first very first FlavorLab already have shown a big win. Before their FlavorLab, their cacao did not even place in the annual national cacao contest based on liquor flavor, at which we were judges. Six months after our installing of a FlavorLab, they placed 3rd in the country!

This particular FlavorLab installation is super exciting for a number of reasons.

The FlavorLab component of the TCHOSource program is showing that it is “scalable”—or able to readily grow in size. Rather than our traveling down with the lab to do the set up and training, now our infield technical partner (and TCHO BeanTeam rock star) Aldo is doing the installation and training at the next Coop. This is very encouraging; the people we’ve trained are training others and we are keeping costs down at the same time. A truly scalable model. Way to go Aldo!

Building the FlavorLabs requires good coordination and teamwork. TCHOSource receives great support from our engineering team and from our founder, Timothy Childs, whose vision and scrappy approach made FlavorLabs possible. They customize a number of the off-the-shelf components as well as the fabrication our internet-enabled custom temperature control boxes (TCHO NetNode) that allows us to maintain a steady and repeatable temperature range during roasting, refining and conching. Thanks, Matt and Robert! Also hats off to Jeremy and Pete in our shipping department that got everything out the door during our busiest holiday season yet. And last but hardly least, huge props to our TCHOSource Program Manager and sustainability Super Star, Ann Cleaveland, for pulling this all together.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect is that our concept of making high quality liquor through good roasting, conching and tempering for proper sensory analysis is beginning to catch on. We hope our “open source” model for improving quality of cacao will become a standard, allowing cooperatives to get better prices, which can in turn drive interest in productivity, leading to real economic sustainability. TCHOSource in action – improving quality, changing lives!

If it's Christmas, it must be time to take off for Hawaii. For Jane, Orson, Zoe, and me, that would mean Moloka'i. Moloka'i Mo'Bettah, as they put it on the most Hawaiian island — literally, it's the only one with a majority of Hawaiians.

Moloka'i has virtually no hotels and definitely no resorts. Indeed, there are no traffic lights on the entire island. In lots of ways, Moloka'i feels like rural America, just in the middle of the Pacific. This is the road into basically the only real town on the island, Kaunakakai (that's Mele Kalikimaka over the intersection — Merry Christmas!):

Not surprisingly, Moloka'i has little tourism, despite having the longest white sand beach (Papohaku) in the islands. In fact, the sands of Honolulu's Waikiki were shipped over from Papohaku.

Molokai is also the home of the recently canonized Father Damien's isolated leper colony, still only accessible on foot (or mule) down this steep, twisting cliffside path.

We go to Molokai to chill. Hiking is great:

The scenery is arresting.

Hanging out on the East end facing Maui is also cool.

And, of course, there's a lot of just playing in the warm Pacific.

Nothing better than ending the day at the Kualapu'u Cookhouse. BYOB. The kids love the baby back ribs. Thursdays, local musicians hang on the lanai.

Been thinking about Hawaii because we've been listening to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole in the office this week.

So even if you can't spend Christmas in Moloka'i this year, have a listen; Iz may be the next best thing to being there.

What a great movie. Highly recommend it to anyone.