Newspaper Page Text
Creamy, Dreamy Chocolate
Intown chocolatiers offer unique tastes and experiences
Chocolates from Cacao
By Joe Earle
Chocolate is a mainstay of the Valentine’s
Day gift-giving experience, but did you
know there are two types of chocolate
makers? Some shops buy chocolate in bulk
and melt it down to make candies and other
chocolate treats. Others, like Xocolatl and
Cacao, are in the “bean-to-bar” part of the
business. They turn cacao beans into richly
flavored chocolate.
Elaine Read and Matt Weyandt own
Xocolatl (which they pronounce “chock-o-
lat-tul”), a company based at Krog Street
Market near Downtown. It’s named for
the word that described chocolate to the
Aztecs and, which they point out by a happy
coincidence, ends in the letters “A-T-L,” a
standard designation for their hometown.
Read came late to chocolate. “I didn’t
like chocolate growing up,” she said. “To
me, it was always too sweet. I always
went for apple pie.”
That changed when the couple lived in
Costa Rica. On their first trip to the Central
American country, they were backpacking
refugees from political campaigns in the
U.S., Read said.
A few years later, they returned, taking
their kids with them, and lived for about
eight months in the jungle near the beach.
“We had a wooden house, a two-bedroom
house, about 250 square feet,” Read said.
“We had a toddler and a baby. Everything
was always wet. We were in the rainforest.”
While there, they discovered local
farmers markets and “a gaggle” of local
farmers who were producing chocolate
from cacao seeds. Some were American
ex-pats like them, she said.
It was a revelation. “When I was a kid,
my family had gone to the Elershey factory
in Pennsylvania,” she said. “I thought
chocolate was sort of man-made. I had no
idea [it came] from the seed of a fruit.”
After they returned to Atlanta, they made
chocolate as hobbyists, Read said. Then they
sold bars at community festivals. They set
up their full-time shop in the Krog Street
Market in 2014, just a couple of months
after the market opened, she said.
Now they make chocolate from beans
imported from Peru and other South
American, Central American and African
countries and sell their hand-made chocolate
bars for $9 or $9.50 apiece, three for $25 or
five for $42. The also offer tours and tastings.
“We knew we wanted to get away
from desk jobs,” Read said. “My job for
15 years was sitting at a computer and
reading emails and writing emails. .. .We
wanted to do something that we made.
i 1^ ^
^ -Hr
EH* :| v l fp
V
ill
□ §■
□m □
m
1
\\ ' ■ i
iH
IB
5T 'it sk • 1 1
in
||||
i i
11
.J
Pi
We wanted to make something.”
Kristen Elard, whose 15-year-old
business, Cacao, also makes chocolate
directly from cacao beans, expresses an even
more ambitious goal. She wants to make the
best chocolate in the world.
Before she started her company 15 years
ago, Elard was working as a private chef As a
girl, she had always been interested in science
and in inventing, she said. “I kind of had
this brain where I have a balance with this
obsession for science and for art,” she said.
She realized in her early 20s that chocolate
came from processing the seeds of a plant, and
“it blew my mind. It was like all these dots
connected... like the stars aligned.”
When she started Cacao, Elard said, she
was among a handful of custom bean-to-bar
chocolate makers in the country. Eler business
has drawn national attention. Notices from
magazines such as Travel + Leisure, Food +
Wine and Oprah decorate the walls of her
office in her northwest Atlanta factory.
Cacao sells $8 chocolate bars and a variety
of specialty confections, such as truffles or
$21.50 Salame di Cioccolato, which looks
like salami, online or through her company’s
Buckhead shop or cafe in Virginia-Highland.
Hard said she’s now working to convince
cacao farmers to grow rare varieties of
the cacao plant and she wants to create a
marketplace that would allow farmers to be
able to afford to grow those varieties.
“Over the last 100 years, cacao has been
bred [to increase] disease resistance and
yield,” she said. “They have bred out flavors.”
She said she’s trying to entice farmers to
grow heirloom varieties that produce fruit
that is sweeter and less bitter. “I’m looking
for the rarest, the less than 1 percent, cacao,”
Hard said. “It exists. It’s really hard to find.”
At the same time, she said, cacao
farmers are aging, so a way must be found to
encourage younger people to replace them
on the farm.
“I am trying to redefine things so our
children and children’s children will have
this,” Hard said. “I just feel like there is a way
to make a change in this world if you put
your mind to it.”
And, while we can, to enjoy a bit of
chocolate along the way. [El
j V
CACAO CHOCOLATE COMPANY
The Shops Buckhead, 3035 Peachtree Road, (404) 228-4023
Virginia-Highland, 1046 N. Highland Ave., (404) 892-8202
Cacao Factory, 202 Permalume PL, (404) 221-9090
cacaoatlanta. com
XOCOLATL CHOCOLATE
Krog Street Market, 99 Krog St., (404) 604-9642
xocolatlchocolate.com
Visit their website for info on tours and to sign up.
S _ r
AMUSE BOUCHE
Ahi Tuna Poke with Avocado,
Chive, Chilli Soy Aioli
and Jasmine Rice
OFFERING
VALENTINE’S DAY
DESSERTS
SOUP
Cream of Jerusalem Artichoke
with Truffle Oil
ENTREE
Seared Filet of Halibut,
Fingerling Potatoes,
Braised Cabbage,
Whole Grain Mustard
Vinagarette
OR
Grilled Tenderloin of Beef,
Celeriac Puree, Porcini
and Thyme Jus
SALAD
Arugula, Frisee, Candied Pecans,
Blue Cheese, Pomegranate
Seeds, Lentil de Puy, Yuzu Juice
and Olive Oil Vinaigrette
Assortment of local cheeses
Handmade desserts and more!
We offer a variety of specialty chocolate confections for Valentine’s Day such as
chocolate boxes, hand-dipped chocolate strawberries, ganache hearts and much more.
MORNINGSIDE
1394 N. Highland Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30306
404.872.6000
DUNWOODY
4505 Ashford Dunwoody Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA 30346
678.397.1781
FOR MORE DETAILS AND TO PLACE AN ORDER, VISIT WWW.ALONS.COM
Elaine Read and her husband, Matt Weyandt, make Xocolatl chocolate bars.
AtlantalNtownPaper.com
Joe Earle
February 2018 I iNtown 37