Saving the Rainforest with Milk Chocolate

February 3, 2010 5:28 pm

Saving the Rainforest with Milk Chocolate

I am a chocolate fiend; it's hard to find a cocoa nib or chocolate potato chip that I don't like. What I never think about as I'm stuffing my face with last night's leftover chocolate chips is that what's going in my mouth had a history. A history based around the destruction of beautiful acres of the rain forest and those trying hard to build it up again.

Original Beans is a chocolate company doing more. Co-founders Philipp Kauffmann, Lesal N. Rusky and Rodney Nikkels are the men and woman with a plan. Each bar of Original Beans chocolate, including variations of dark chocolate and, my personal favorite, a milk chocolate entitled "Esmeralda's Milk" are packaged with care and resealable.

The bars are specially refined with respect to the region they are harvested from: the Republic of Congo, Ecuador and Bolivia. Tip, a conching process delivers the highest quality of chocolate with each bar possessing a unique flavor depending on the amount of time the chocolate spends in the conches.

Each bar includes a tracking slip with a code that allows the consumer to go online to Original Beans and see the area where a tree has been planted. By adding to the foliage, Original Beans helps conserve the forest and keeps the tree population lush and plentiful. Quite like adopting a child abroad, Original Beans allows you to watch the way the trees grow as they build up the forest and the people therein.

I was lucky enough to try two out of the three flavors, the aforementioned Esmeralda's Milk and Cru Virunga. The first is a succulent, melt in your mouth milk chocolate, conched for 50 hours. As I slipped it into my mouth you could hear the moan of pleasure as the buttered caramel flavors of the richly melded chocolate hit my tongue. If you hold it in your mouth for just a second, you can even taste a slight sea salt flavor that makes you long for the beach.

The second, Cru Virunga, is a dark, deep chocolate conched for 20 hours that holds the fruity notes of berry and orange. It reminded me of the feeling of a stormy night, wrapped up in a warm blanket, sipping cocoa with raspberry liquor. Smooth, tart and just a little edgy. Perfect.

If you'd like to purchase Original Beans, and I suggest you do, you can take a peek at their Purchase List to see where you can find them near you.