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Single Origin

Small-Batch

Bean to Bar

PURE EXPRESSIONS

Côte d'Ivoire

The Ivory Coast

(The Ivory Coast)

70% Dark Chocolate

This is traditional dark chocolate at its most satisfying: a bold fudgy-ganache center followed by a gentle toasted-nut finish. Subtle baking spice and earthy cocoa add complexity without pulling it away from its deeply familiar chocolate character.

Made for those who love classic chocolate flavors, this bar also demonstrates how good fermentation and carefully roasted Forastero cacao can be.

$7.50

Country

Côte d'Ivoire

Elevation

200 m West African Forest Belt

Cacao Identity

Forastero

Harvest

20202019/20 crop — Winter

Fermentation

Full Fermentation

The beans were fully fermented under banana leaves. Detailed records covering fermentation duration, turning schedule, and temperature were not retained for this lot.

Drying

The cacao was sun-dried, reportedly using bamboo mats. Exact drying duration and weather-management details were not retained for this lot.

Certifications

Rainforest Alliance Certified

Producer

Smallholder NetworkSourced with Chocolate Alchemy

Roast

Balanced

Genetics / Pedigree

West African Amelonado Heritage

The retained documentation identifies this cacao as Forastero. Its genetics are likely rooted in West African Amelonado material, which is widely cultivated throughout Côte d’Ivoire.

Producer Profile

This lot comes from a network of smallholder cacao farmers within Côte d’Ivoire’s forest belt. Individual farms, cooperatives, and a more precise growing region were not identified in the retained sourcing records.

The cacao was sourced through Chocolate Alchemy and is Rainforest Alliance Certified.

Why We Chose This Source

Côte d’Ivoire’s cacao story cannot be told honestly without naming the exploitation woven into its past and still present within parts of the industry today. Too often, the world has celebrated the chocolate while overlooking the people whose labor made it possible.

Some chocolate makers respond by walking away from the region entirely. We understand that instinct, but we do not believe abandonment helps the farmers and organizations working to build something better. If responsible efforts are met only with suspicion and lost markets, meaningful change becomes even harder to sustain.

We chose this Rainforest Alliance Certified lot because progress needs more than criticism—it also needs encouragement, accountability, and customers willing to support those moving in a better direction. The story is not perfect or finished, but people are doing the difficult work of changing it. We want our purchases, our chocolate, and our voice to stand with them.

Flavor of Place

Across southern and western Côte d’Ivoire, cacao grows in the warm, low-elevation landscapes of the West African forest belt. Seasonal rains, tropical heat and deeply weathered soils support the robust cacao that made this region the center of the world’s chocolate supply.

The lot’s Forastero cacao produces a commanding foundation of earthy chocolate. Careful fermentation and roasting reveal unexpected refinement beneath that strength: fudgy ganache, toasted nut and soft baking spice, with fleeting impressions of chamomile, black pepper and fresh leather.

People & Provenance

Côte d’Ivoire’s cacao story is both essential and difficult. Hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers support the world’s largest cacao-producing economy, yet many remain trapped in poverty within a commodity system historically associated with child-labor risk, deforestation and limited farm-level traceability.

Turning away from the entire origin does not distinguish responsible growers from harmful practices—and can remove opportunity from the very farming families the chocolate industry depends upon. This 2020 lot was selected because it entered the supply chain as Rainforest Alliance Certified cacao, bringing it within a framework of farm standards, auditing, training and systems intended to identify and address labor and environmental risks.

Beginning in 2019, Rainforest Alliance strengthened its West African cacao program with additional auditing, farmer support and GPS mapping designed to identify possible encroachment into protected forests. Certification does not mean that every industry problem has been solved, nor does this lot provide enough information to name its individual growers. It represents a more accountable way to participate in a region where continued engagement and improvement matter.

For Wesley’s Cocoa Farm, this bar is therefore about both honesty and possibility: acknowledging the challenges without reducing an entire country to them, while allowing a carefully fermented Ivorian cacao to demonstrate just how nuanced and beautiful classic Forastero chocolate can be.