This Sunday, March 29 from 2-5 pm we welcome Taza chocolate to Greene Grape Provisions. They’ll provide tastes of their stone-ground chocolate, a small-batch bean-to-bar chocolate made in Massachusetts.

“Bean to bar” is gaining traction these days because it allows chocolatiers like Taza more control over how the cocoa beans are grown and how fairly the farmers are compensated for it. Taza buys cocoa beans according to slow food sourcing principles, pays a fair price, and seeks organically and biodynamically grown beans.

Buying at the bean level also allows Taza control over how the cocoa beans are roasted and turned into a bar. Taza lightly roasts its beans and then grinds them with antique Mexican stone mills. This historical method of production isn’t just quaint – the stone mills create a rougher grind that preserves the great range of fruity and nutty flavors found in the cocoa bean. If you’re used to a very sweet, processed chocolate, this may be surprising. Taza suggests that their chocolate be thought of as food, not candy. In today’s economic times, that might not be too far off the mark – chocolate now somehow seems essential to daily life.