Setting the Stage
It all started with noted cacao expert Dan O’Doherty joining us on Zoom from a cacao field in Maui. There he was, holding a machete and sitting under a cacao tree bursting with ripe, orange-yellow cacao pods, ready to taste chocolate and share stories from the field.
It was an auspicious start to the first year of The Chocolate Explorers Club, one that took us from the fields of Maui to a chocolate factory in Lithuania to the celebrated winners of the International Chocolate Awards. Each month we tasted world-class chocolate together with our featured guests while hearing their stories and opening our senses to new chocolate experiences. We built a community of chocolate explorers who taste with more intention, ask better questions, and understand the stories behind every bar.
This is our year Unwrapped, the moments that defined our chocolate journey and made our first year special.
The Makers Who Became Part of Our Story
Dan O’Doherty is a plant scientist who travels the world to teach farmers how to improve their cacao, from selecting and propagating the best plants to deploying fermentation and drying techniques that optimize flavor. Building credibility with those farmers is critical, as Dan described during his presentation:
"To build trust, you need to get involved. Many consultants before me would show up in villages wearing penny loafers and khakis saying, "You should do it like this." But being able to swing a machete well and break pods gets you street cred, especially in Latin America where there's often an attitude of "We've been doing this for generations, and you're going to tell us to do everything differently?" If you take out your well-used machete and break pods as fast as they do, they'll listen."
Dan did just that during our talk, cracking open pods with his machete to demonstrate how to assess ripeness.
Midway through the year we were joined by another notable guest, this one steeped in the sensory experience of chocolate tasting. James Beard award-winning chef, author and co-Founder of the International Chocolate Awards, Maricel Presilla, joined us to taste award-winning chocolates.
One of the best tasting guides in the business, Maricel recommends starting with the basics, the five taste sensations your tongue detects,
“I always tell people that before we go into the search for Chanel Number 5 and the elusive floral elements, just focus on 5 taste sensations because it's what you first detect."
Each month brought a new speaker. While some months featured experts like Dan and Maricel, other months featured craft chocolate makers.
One maker stood out for his unique approach and innovative flavor combinations. Domantas Uzpalis, the chocolate maker behind Chocolate Naive in Lithuania, created some of our members’ favorite bars in 2025. His playful and unique combinations include porcini mushroom and a riff on the flavors in cola. While attending the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle a few months later, Domantas told me our members flooded his booth as soon as the doors opened. They were so excited to meet him and taste more of his chocolate.
The Chocolate That Stopped Us in Our Tracks
Every month brought an unforgettable flavor experience. While it’s difficult to choose favorites, here are five chocolates that stood out for their robust flavors and rich stories.
- Chocolate Tree Cacao Fruit 100% - This Guatemala-origin chocolate is lightly sweetened with freeze-dried cacao pulp. It can be called 100% because even the sweetener comes from cacao, but it doesn’t have the bitter intensity of an unsweetened 100% chocolate. A bright, citrus-y acidity complements the rich chocolate notes.
- Maui Ku’ia Estate 70% - True to its origin, this chocolate is redolent with notes of mango and papaya. Maker Dan O’Doherty says, “I think the stress, heat, and long days on our west-facing location - we get roasted until sunset - contribute to this concentrated fruit flavor.” He agonizes over every ferment, adapting it to the unique characteristics of the season, followed by a roast tailored to each year’s harvest.
- River-Sea Chuncho 72% - Bold, ripe banana flavors are accompanied by delicate floral notes that arrive as soon as this chocolate begins to melt. It conjures images of ripe cacao intercropped with heirloom banana trees and a cornucopia of flowers. It’s hard to taste just one piece.
- Piety & Desire Parleaux Beer 73% - A collaboration between a New Orleans chocolate maker and a beer brewer, the flavor reminds me of the sweet, malty aromas that perfume the air of breweries. Chocolate maker Christopher Nobles soaks cacao nibs and hazelnuts in stout beer and vanilla, creating rich flavor without bitterness.
- Chocolate Naïve Las Trincheras Carabobo - This “Nano-lot” chocolate is made from a small batch of cacao that hails from a coastal rainforest in Venezuela. The flavor offers intense notes of buckwheat honey and hints of nuts, wood and citrus with a lingering finish.
What the Wider Chocolate World Taught Us
Two surprises were the cacao origins of Puerto Rico and Haiti. Cacao from Haiti has been available to craft makers for some time, but in past years I haven’t been a fan of its flavor profile, which often tasted earthy and acidic. This year I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent bars made by River-Sea Chocolate and Monsoon Chocolate. River-Sea’s Haiti 72% had notes of smoked wood, chocolate, porcini mushroom, ginger and cream while Monsoon Chocolate’s Pisa, Haiti 40% milk chocolate tasted fruity and floral with hints of caramel.
Puerto Rico is another up-and-coming origin, the result of a recent increase in the number of farms growing cacao on the island. Its status as an unincorporated territory of the US also made it more attractive when import tariffs were levied elsewhere. As a result of this confluence of events, many US-based makers have recently introduced Puerto Rico bars. We tasted River-Sea’s Puerto Rico 72% micro-lot bar, which was one of the most complex chocolates I’ve tasted in some time. It included notes of chocolate, tobacco, rum, tropical fruit, vanilla and tonka beans. If this is an indicator of what’s to come, I’ll be on the lookout for more Puerto Rico-origin chocolate in 2026!
Hidden Gems & Unexpected Discoveries
Hearing the startup stories of the artisan makers behind the chocolate was one of our members’ favorite features.
Freddie & Ali Gower of Chocolate Tree in Scotland first dipped their toes in chocolate when they built geodesic tents for music festivals around Britain. They created a café tent and sold chocolate goodies made with organic bulk chocolate, which inspired Ali to make chocolate from the bean. He notes,
“By some lucky chance, our first experiment with cacao beans turned out absolutely delicious ... I think everybody gets a bit of beginner's luck… Then afterward, you start making really bad chocolate and have to learn how to improve.”
While driving through Chantilly, Virginia in 2024 I discovered River-Sea Chocolate and immediately fell in love with their flavorful single-origin bars. I invited co-founder Mariano D’Aguiar to lead members in a virtual tasting of some of the most memorable bars of the year.
Other highlights included an in-person member meet-up at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle. Members attended from near and far, including California and Pennsylvania. It was fun to see new chocolate friendships being forged in person.
Like all craft chocolate, the chocolates we tasted this year represent a unique point in time. Every batch is different. Flavor can be impacted by a new cacao harvest, a different roast profile or a change in the weather during refining. That’s part of the fun of discovery. Even a familiar bar might taste different when you unwrap a new batch.
What’s Ahead in 2026
If 2025 showed us anything, it’s that there is always more to discover. We’re creating another exciting year of chocolate adventure in 2026, one that introduces members to new makers, new flavors and new tasting experiences.
In 2026, we'll explore rare cacao genetics, collaborate with makers pushing flavor boundaries, and dive deeper into the origins that make craft chocolate special. Our Enthusiast membership brings monthly curated boxes and live virtual tastings directly to you, while our Digital membership offers exclusive content and community connection.
Both paths lead to the same destination: a richer understanding of the chocolate you love. If these stories and flavors speak to you, we'd love to welcome you into our chocolate community. Explore our membership options.
