It is one of the great discussions within the specialty coffee industry.  We are working with a large retailer that is asking for a Fair Trade certified hot cocoa drink mix.  The company has specified that the product needs to have the Fair Trade logo on it because it believes customers will react favorably to it.

I am a big believer in the fair trade system.  (Uncapitalized, in this context, and, unfortunately, always undercapitalized!)  However, in this instance, we are faced with one of the ironies of using the branded Fair Trade logo.  Namely, products can only be branded with the Trans Fair logo if they come from a cooperative.  One of our cocoa sources is in Ghana, and we have a very strong relationship with them.

Because of the governmental system in place in Ghana, farmers sell their beans directly to the government, and in return receive a reasonable price.  In Ghana, 9 million people make their living from growing cocoa, so it is in the government’s interest to ensure the price is as high as possible, and they have successfully done so for decades.  But this company is not a co-op.  So we can’t use their cocoa for this product.  Which is a shame, since we would be purchasing a significant amount of cocoa powder, the money would go straight back to Ghana, and make a significant impact on all of their lives.  It is a curious system.

OK, some days even I can’t believe how much fun I have.  I spent two hours tasting an assortment of chocolate bars.  Mont Blanc is developing a chocolate wheel that will incorporate a common vocabulary of flavors that will allow us to better communicate the subtleties and nuances of what we taste.  The staff tasted six bars, five dark chocolate and one milk chocolate.

For consistency, all of the dark chocolates were premium, meaning that they had at least 59 percent chocolate liquor. The bars we used had between 59 and 80 percent chocolate liquor.  Obviously, the amount of chocolate in each bar varied, but that also allowed us to better discern the different flavors.

One bar, for example, had a very smoky, leathery, almost tobacco flavor.  Another one initially had a very astringent, metallic flavor, but that mellowed to include notes of cherry and raisin. The milk chocolate bar had a pronounced dairy note, as you would expect, but also had flavors of vanilla, caramelized sugar, and even hints of lavender.

This was the first of what will be a number of tastings. When finished, the results will be used to produce a chocolate wheel that should help people better understand the nuances and differences in chocolate.

Chocolate and cocoa are commodities that are widely traded, but in actuality are controlled by a handful of companies.  There are probably about a half dozen significant chocolate manufacturing companies in the world.  We work with several different ones, since each has different products that we prefer to use in different formulations. These companies are all huge multinational companies, and one often gets the sense that they are all working together as a cocoa cartel.

Over the past two years, prices have increased significantly.  Part of that can be attributed to the rise in the commodity price of cocoa.  One of  the ironies in the increase of that price is that most of it isn’t attributable to companies buying chocolate.  Instead, it comes from financial speculators, hedge fund managers, and investors trying to make money in the futures markets.  But for those of us who actually need the products and want to maintain a level of quality, it has forced about a 25 percent price increase!

The commodities market is an interesting place. Hard to believe that a hedge fund directly affects the cost of your mocha.