Chocolate Shops We Love: Chokolá Bean to Bar
Chokola owner Debi Vincent photo credit Chokola Bean to Bar
Amid a vibrant Taos, New Mexico neighborhood of shops and restaurants, multi-award winning, locally owned Chokolá Bean to Bar offers delicious handcrafted single-origin chocolate bars and truffles, plus cakes, brownies and pastries. Inside the cozy café, customers also savor pour-over coffee or large, decadent shakes.
The multi-award-winning, small-batch chocolate maker launched summer of 2016 and has about a 50-50 split of locals versus visitors. What customers may or may not know, is that according to owner and cofounder Debi Vincent, everything, including the ice cream, is made with organic ingredients.
Chocolate from Early On
Vincent grew up in Venezuela where her mother is from but her father is from Taos and she visited her grandmother in New Mexico every summer. “I’ve been making chocolate since I was 19,” she says. “It has been a constant companion in my life. At age 24 I met my (then) husband, Javier Abad. We sold our chocolate business in Venezuela and moved here, to help my grandmother.”
Vincent later learned how to use small batch machines to process beans and craft high-quality, bean-to-bar chocolate. “Because my grandparents in Venezuela were coffee farmers, I really wanted to make chocolate from the bean,” she says. “We work with cacao farmers who do fermentation, then we roast and conch the beans.”
“Chocolate is one of the most complex foods in the world, and cacao plants have very [complicated] flavors. We want to bring as much of these flavors to our chocolate as we can.”
Vincent believes Chokolá’s locally made chocolate sets it apart from many boutique chocolate makers. “It’s still very rare, around the world,” she says. “We are working with nature and different harvest seasons, while following the steps of specialty coffee or wine and using different roasting processes. Before, most chocolate makers were making confections by melting down [other] chocolate.”
The Shop
Chokola shop photo courtesy of Lisa Waterman Gray
Vincent calls Chokolá a little chocolate restaurant. Inside the historic adobe building, “We have an area where you can sit down and order our sipping chocolates. We also have pastries. And we have a chocolate mousse bar, which I learned about from a teacher in France. It’s one of the first in the United States, with five flavors.” Served in small cups, ultra-creamy texture pairs with decadent flavors such as Madagascar Mousse and Dulce de Leche Mousse.
Chokolá typically serves customers six days per week, year-round. What began as an in-house factory now operates offsite, to accommodate the growing business. Vincent hopes to establish robust, national distribution with these expanded facilities.
Top Selling Chocolates
Single origin bars
Chokola bars photo credit Chokola Bean to Bar.
Eight single origin bars are top in-store, and online sellers, from Madagascar Raspberry to Tumaco (with a whiskey flavor profile). Custom art decorating each wrapper reflects Vincent’s love of art history. She also sources bars from other global chocolate makers.
Chokola confections photo credit Chokola Bean to Bar.
Boxed bonbons are available in various configurations including a mystery box.
Also Look For
Chokola photo credit Chokola Bean to Bar
Vincent says Chokolá has a new product line for flavored bars and a sugar-free chocolate line, too. “And we’re always trying to make new pastries,” she says. In addition, onsite visitors have grown to love Cacao Shell Tea, whose taste resembles cinnamon tea.
The next time you visit the Taos area, purchase your favorite Chokolá chocolate creation onsite—or enjoy a delicious treat inside the cozy café.