Vassar Quarterly - Summer 2018 - 42

C hocolate
& Mexican Traditions
FUELS Alex WhitmorE ‚99

T

he outdoor markets of Oaxaca,
Mexico, are a haven for chocolate lovers. Molineros, or millers,
employ hand-carved granite
stones to grind cacao beans to order, and
customize them with a handful of almonds
or an extra dash of sugar. At home, Mexicans
use the beans to make a morning chocolate
drink that is as ubiquitous as coffee in the
United States. When Alex Whitmore '99
encountered these chocolate makers on a
trip in 2006, he was entranced.
"I totally geeked out," says Whitmore,
who was an anthropology major at Vassar.
"I wanted to know everything about how the
chocolate was made." He was also enthralled
by the taste, which was nothing like the Swiss
Lindt chocolate he'd grown up eating.
On a return trip, Whitmore studied with
the molineros, learning how to hand-carve
the millstones that produce the region's style
of chocolate. Then in 2005, at the age of 28,
he quit his consulting gig at the tech startup
Zipcar and used his life savings to start a
42

SuMMEr 2018

Whitmore, left, meets with coffee growers in
Haiti. His Fair Trade company has yielded Taza's
unconventional bean-to-bar chocolate.

chocolate factory in a 1,600-square-foot space
tucked into an industrial neighborhood
outside Boston. He named the company Taza
Chocolate (taza means "cup" in Spanish). His
then-girlfriend, Kathleen Fulton (now his
wife), is also a Taza founder.
Whitmore took shifts as a barista at a local
café to make ends meet and "lived on pasta"
when he first began selling his chocolate at
farmers' markets and through local retailers.
Without any formal training in the culinary
arts, he had to figure it all out as he went

along, he says. His first big break came when
Whole Foods agreed to carry his products.
They are now sold in more than 5,000 stores
worldwide, including Wegmans and Big Y.
Using the traditional Mexican stone
mills, called molinos, to grind the cacao
beans, Taza Chocolate became one of the
few bean-to-bar chocolate producers in the
United States. The taste is much different
than that of a Hershey's bar, Whitmore
explains. By minimally refining the cacao,
the company "honors the ingredients,"
preserving the bright, fruity flavors of the
beans and creating a strong, rustic taste.
Further, he says, "Chocolate doesn't have
to be waxy smooth." The texture of the bars
is rough, and tasting Taza chocolate for the
first time "can be jarring, but most people
get hooked." He has, however, received hate
mail from those who don't care for the taste.
Whitmore, who is Taza's CEO, is
committed to producing chocolate that is
certified organic. He embraced a direct-trade
program, which means paying higher prices
to producers in developing countries than
most Fair Trade programs require. In fact,
Taza pays at least $500 per ton over the world
market price for the cacao beans it imports
from Ghana, Haiti, and the Dominican
Republic. Farmers who supply the company
must be paid enough to have a decent
standard of living, he says.
"We are for-profit, but the spirit behind
the company is to create a positive impact,"
he says. "We want everything we do to be
ethical." Taza publishes an annual "transparency report," which details, for example,
the gender breakdown of the farmers with
whom it works. He also has co-founded
companies in Belize, Guatemala, and Bolivia
that export cacao beans and adhere to the
same transparent, ethical approach.
Taza Chocolate now has 55 employees
and is planning to expand, fueled by several
million dollars raised from a single investor
earlier this year. Its factory offers tours six
days a week. Of course, the tours offer the
chance to sample several types of chocolate,
including the Wicked Dark Chocolate Bar,
the company's most popular product. It's 95
percent stone-ground chocolate with just
two ingredients: cane sugar and cacao beans.
The taste, says Whitmore, is "amazingly bold."
-Jennifer Greenstein Altmann '91

Michael Piazza / John Frattasi

A LovE OF



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