Today’s Tried and True Green Product Review spotlights Kallari Chocolate Company.  Many thanks to Carol for providing us with complimentary samples of Kallari’s 70%, 75% and 85% cacao content bars for our much anticipated taste test.

This is a story of extraordinary taste and solid sustainability… and I think I just discovered a new bff… If love is a drug, let mine be chocolate — Kallari Chocolate, a producer of single-source organic chocolate that’s unlike any other –not only in terms of taste, but also its triple bottom line — people, planet and profit.

• taste

You know how some chocolate can give you “cotton mouth,” whereby the chocolate seems to suck all the moisture out of your mouth and you need to immediately gulp down some water after swallowing?  Not so with Kallari.

This is a chocolate bar as lush and intense as the ground upon which it was grown.  Enjoyed best by placing a piece squarely on your tongue, and savoring the flavor by rolling it around, almost letting it melt…no need to bite and chew.  It’s a real sensory treat — not too sweet. Just totally satisfying.

Here’s the skinny… 3 of us each tasted 3 different bars, and we all agreed that Kallari may very well be the best tasting organic chocolate bar brand on the market today.  And, being the admitted chocoholics we are, we’ve probably tasted nearly all of them.  Even though we enjoyed all 3 Kallari bars, if we had to pick our favorites, here’s how they placed: 1st Place: 75% cacao, 2nd place: 70% and 3rd place: 85% cacao.

The outer paper packaging unfolds and the story of Kallari is revealed — on recycled paper with 50% post-consumer waste and soy inks and resins; and it is here that one learns that KALLARI is pronounced: (kahl YA di) and signifies past, present and (hope for) the future.

A little more about how this delicious flavor comes to be, (it’s almost like describing a fine wine):  Kallari’s fresh, unadulterated taste and absence of bitterness is derived from its field blending of single-source noble varietal beans, primarily the rare and much esteemed Cacao Nacional with hints of Criollo, Trinitano Venezuelan and Blonde Cacao.

• people, profit and planet

Socially responsible, Kallari is the first 100 percent co-op owned chocolate maker.  One hundred percent of profits from bar sales are returned to the Kallari Association, with self reliant governance and an innovative economic model — which is revolutionary in the global chocolate industry. (btw, $5.99/bar)

850 indigenous Kichwa families produce this chocolate.  The cacao production provides the Kichwa people, located deep in the Amazonian Basin of Ecuador, a viable income so they have the economic resources to both resist the logging of their forests or succumb to the short-term riches offered by petroleum extraction.  Kallari Chocolate Company was mentored by Stephen McDonnell, Founder and CEO of Applegate Farms, who provided start-up funds and business expertise, and worked with Whole Foods Market to showcase Kallari’s products.

• last licks, our bottom line

Whether you happen to be a certified chocoholic or simply jonesin’ for some dark chocolate, try kallarichocolate.com before going to pieces — sustainable pleasure for palate and planet.