Local chocolate shop wins silver award in London
In a little storefront shop just steps from Taos Plaza, there’s a chocolate and dessert shop that’s winning international competitions for its bean-to-bar chocolate.
The hugely successful dessert shop Chokolá recently brought home a silver award from the 2020 Academy of Chocolate Awards in London for its Madagascar 75 percent chocolate bar.
“In the category of dark chocolate, single origin,” said Debi Vincent, co-owner of Chokolá Bean to Bar along with her husband Javier Abad.
The two opened their shop in 2016, and tempt customers with a wide array of chocolate offerings — mousse, ice cream, truffles, cakes, brownies, pastries and chocolate bars.
“We try to present chocolate in many ways,” said Vincent. “The whole idea of the store was to be able to have a little dessert restaurant where people can enjoy pastries and sweets in a different way.”
The Academy of Chocolate, founded in 2005, is “an independent body that promotes real chocolate and the role it plays in society and well-being.”
Chokolá has also won two Good Food Awards as an Origin Bar winner in 2018, and four Bronze awards at the International Chocolate Awards for Origin Bars in 2019.
In an April article, Food and Wine included Chokolá in its list of the top 50 “finest chocolate makers and chocolate shops across the country.”
“The awards have been stacking up of late, but a 75 percent Bolivia, made with wild harvest cacao, is of special note,” an excerpt from the article reads.
‘The big dream’
Vincent began making confections in Venezuela when she was 19 years old. “Chocolate bon bons and truffles,” she said.
“I wanted to learn how to make chocolate from the cacao beans directly. And at that time, there was no technology available for small batch,” said Vincent. “So I had to settle for being a chocolatier, which was melting industrial chocolate and creating confections like the truffles.”
Soon thereafter, she met her husband, who also became a chocolatier. They expanded the business, but in 2008, they sold everything and moved to Taos.
“We both started working on other things. I used to work at The Harwood Museum of Art — I’m an art historian. Javi was working in film — he’s a filmmaker,” she said.
But the couple eventually returned to chocolate, and with a partner, opened a small business. Soon after, Vincent was introduced to a method of making chocolate from cacao beans.
“That’s when I realized that the technology was being developed in the United States, and a lot of people were starting to make small-batch chocolate,” she said.
“And then I thought, well, this is something I always wanted to do. So we went for it. And we started doing bean-to-bar chocolate,” said Vincent. “And that was the big dream.”
Expanding production
Chokolá, located at 100-198 Juan Largo Lane, is open yearround, six days a week (TuesdaySunday). The shop, which offers outdoor seating between Taos Plaza and the entrance to the John Dunn Shops, also had included Vincent’s chocolate factory.
“The shop got to be too small for the machines, and we’re trying to grow our bean-to-bar so we can distribute nationally,” she said. Vincent plans to rent additional space in town and move their factory operations there.
She said Abad does the opening and closing of the shop, and manages their employees. Vincent creates the product line, and roasts the cacao beans. “So we are splitting a lot of the jobs,” she said.
Chokolá now has plans to expand its production. “We are getting more machines. We got one right now that is helping us cut three days off the process,” said Vincent.
“We’re going to expand online, and distribute to certain specialty stores that will help put our name out there,” she said. “One in Seattle, one in Portland, one in New York, one in Utah, one in London. And one more than that — my friend is trying to help us in Paris.”
Still, she says they want to keep their business relatively small.
“Distributing massively? No, because we are very handcrafted,” said Vincent. “We want to be able to control the quality and keep it small batch.”
For more information, visit chokolabeantobar.com.