A CRASH COURSE IN COCOA BUTTER

Q: What is your shipping policy?

Warm weather policy starts April 19, 2021: We want you to receive your chocolate in perfect condition and as quickly as possible. In warm weather, we ship on Mondays and Tuesdays (and Wednesday if the destination is close enough to guarantee arrival before the weekend). We add insulation and an ice pack at no charge, and we strongly encourage you to choose an expedited shipping method if your order is traveling outside of New England. We cannot be responsible for chocolate that is heat-damaged when you open it, so please have someone be home when your package is expected to arrive or provide a safe, cool delivery spot. We may need to delay shipment altogether if the weather is too hot here or there, and will notify you if this happens. You will receive an email when your package ships. We do not ship internationally at this time.

Q: What is your return policy?

Your chocolate is shipped in perfect condition and, as described above, we take every precaution to make sure it arrives in perfect condition as well. If it is damaged in transit, we will gladly replace it but cannot refund shipping costs. We cannot accept the return or exchange of chocolate that was received intact. Having said that, if you are unhappy with your order, we hope you will reach out to us. Our products are created for you, and we want to hear if we need to make changes to our product, our shipping methods, or anything else in order to keep you as a happy customer.

Q: How should I store my chocolate?

Best is to keep it between 65 and 70 degrees and in low humidity (less than 55%) and darkness, like a pantry or cupboard. Refrigeration is a good choice as long as you first put it in something else with as little air as possible such as a baggie with the air forced out. Please let it come to room temperature before enjoying it. Hot temperatures as well as big swings in temperature make chocolate “bloom” or go out of temper, meaning the cocoa butter separates from the cocoa solids. When this happens, although there is nothing wrong with the chocolate, it will have chalky whitish/greyish patterns (that’s the cocoa butter) and a different mouthfeel. When stored in ideal conditions, your chocolate can be enjoyed long after you got it, but we like it the most when it’s as fresh as possible.

Q: What does 70% mean?

It refers to the percentage of cacao by weight in the finished chocolate. Because Tangle Chocolate has only two ingredients, you know that our chocolate consists of 70% cacao and 30% sugar.

Q: Do you make other kinds of chocolate besides 70% dark?

Not right now...but what do you think we should make next? Please let us know!

Q: What's the big deal about Tangle Chocolate being freshly made?

Some foods improve with age, such as wine and many cheeses. Others lose some of their taste over time. We find that the flavors in chocolate mellow. Now, this may not concern you, and you may have been perfectly content your whole life with chocolate that arrived in a shop perhaps many months before you purchased it. But we invite you to try our chocolate and see if you notice a difference in the number and quality of distinct flavors straight from the cacao bean that you can taste.

Q: Is Tangle Chocolate single-origin? And what does that mean?

Yes, Tangle Chocolate is single origin. That means that all of the cacao beans used in our chocolate are from the same region. Those cacao trees experience the same soil, weather, altitude and so on that contribute to the distinct flavor of the chocolate. Tangle Chocolate uses cacao beans from a single region of Guatemala, the Cahabón region.

Q: What's the difference between bean-to-bar and craft or artisan chocolate?

These words, along with other ones like "small batch" and "handcrafted," are used in an attempt to differentiate specialty chocolate from large-maker industrial chocolate. However, none of them has a legal definition in the U.S., so their presence on a label doesn't necessarily guarantee anything, which can be confusing and even misleading. Bean-to-bar chocolate means that the maker started with cacao beans, did all of the roasting and refining in house, and ended up with the finished chocolate. That describes Tangle Chocolate. Very large companies technically can be bean-to-bar chocolate makers too, but the term is generally used to describe small chocolate makers like us. The terms “craft” and “artisan” imply that the chocolate was made by a small company with lots of human involvement in the process, whether or not the chocolate is bean to bar...but again, without a legal definition, it's hard for us as consumers to know what "small" is. Industrial chocolate makers have noticed consumer interest in craft products, and some now use words like "craft" and "artisan" on their labels. In addition, while some “craft” or “artisan” chocolate companies are also bean to bar, others buy ready-made chocolate, melt it and perhaps add special touches, and then remold and package it with their label. If you're unsure about a chocolate company's label language, call them and ask any questions you have.

Q: Is your chocolate certified organic?

Not at this time. Although the cacao beans and sugar that we currently use are certified organic, we have chosen not to go through the process to be certified organic as a company. This enables us to keep the door open in the future to using non-certified organic beans that we love. We understand that sometimes a farmer can't meet the costs and administrative duties associated with getting and maintaining organic certification even though their products are up to organic standards.

Q: Is Tangle Chocolate Fair Trade?

No. We are committed to paying more than the Fair Trade price standards and to meeting or surpassing any ethical standards you can think of. We buy our cacao beans from good people who know their many small farmers (average farm size: 2.5 acres) and are super transparent about their practices and finances.

August 5, 2021

All chocolate lovers who read this will know that cocoa butter is a critical natural component of the cocoa bean. Some of you may have seen it also listed in the ingredients of inedible products such as cosmetics, and wondered if it’s a bioidentical product. Turns out, cocoa butter is enormously versatile. In addition to being super important in chocolate, it can be used in baking as well as in moisturizers, makeup, and health care products.

What is Cocoa Butter?

Simply put, cocoa butter is the fatty part of the cocoa bean. Despite the word “butter” being in its name, it actually does not contain any dairy; it’s a pure plant product. The amount of cocoa butter in cocoa beans varies depending on the origin, type of bean, and even weather during the time the cacao pod was growing, but it’s roughly half the weight of the bean. If one were to extract the cocoa butter from a bean, as is done for certain purposes, what would be left is cocoa powder like what you might buy to mix with milk and sugar to make hot chocolate. The cocoa butter, when in solid form, does look a bit like dairy butter because it’s pale yellow. When melted, it’s an oil like any other fat. One can buy it in its natural state, in which case it has a very mild cocoa scent and flavor, or in a “deodorized” state.

Cocoa Butter in Chocolate

All fine chocolate that is made from whole cocoa beans contains the cocoa butter that is naturally in the beans. There are a couple of reasons that a chocolate maker might add more cocoa butter to that naturally present in the beans they are using. Sometimes it’s because they prefer the mouthfeel and texture of chocolate that has more fat. Cocoa butter melts to oil at just below body temperature, which means it melts quickly and makes chocolate feel extra creamy in the mouth. Too much extra cocoa butter can feel unpleasant, so each maker works carefully to find the amount that they prefer. Another reason extra cocoa butter might be added to chocolate is to make a certain type of bean easier to work with, in the same way that you might add extra melted butter or oil to thin a pancake batter.

How Does Soy Lecithin Fit in this Conversation?

You may have also seen soy lecithin listed as an ingredient in chocolate. It does the same thing that added cocoa butter does, that is, making the chocolate seem creamier. Some makers use it instead of cocoa butter for a simple reason. Cocoa butter is expensive! It’s cheaper to add a little soy lecithin. In fact, some makers extract some cocoa butter from the beans they are using to make chocolate with, replace it with soy lecithin, and then sell the extracted cocoa butter for another use!

Does Added Cocoa Butter Change the Percentage of Cocoa in Chocolate?

The short answer to that question is no. Because cocoa butter is still technically part of a cocoa bean, food regulations in the US do not require that it be separated out as an ingredient when calculating the percentage of cacao in a type of chocolate. What that means is that there can be a great difference in the amount of cocoa solids that are in different chocolates even though they are all labeled 70%, for example. These different proportions affect the chocolate’s intensity. So a chocolate labeled 85% cacao that has a lot of added cocoa butter could taste as mild as a 70% cacao bar without any added cocoa butter. Chocolate connoisseurs know to check labels to see what they’re really getting in the percentage of cacao that is advertised on the front of the bar. Tangle Chocolate has no added cocoa butter.

A Note About White Chocolate

Simple good quality white chocolate consists of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk. Bad quality white chocolate uses other, cheaper fats to mix with sugar and milk. Check the labels.

Other Uses for Cocoa Butter

Because cocoa butter comes from a plant, it’s vegan. That means it’s a wonderful fat for vegan diets and can be used just as butter would be used in cooking and baking. It is a healthy saturated fat. Cocoa butter is also a common ingredient in high-quality skincare products: lip balms, lotions, moisturizers, and makeup. It offers numerous benefits, such as hydrating your skin, nourishing your skin with vitamins, and creating a protective layer to hold in moisture. It contains plant compounds called phytochemicals, which aid in improving blood flow and slowing the aging process that may come from the sun's UV rays. It can also help prevent skin diseases, and there is some research that supports cocoa butter being used to help minimize stretch marks during pregnancy.

How to Buy Cocoa Butter

If you’d like to try cocoa butter in your cooking or experiment with it as a simple moisturizer or lip balm, you can pick some up most likely at your natural food store. If they don’t sell it, there are a number of chocolate companies that offer it for sale, including this wonderful resource for chocolate lovers: https://chocolatealchemy.com/. Important: be sure you are buying food grade butter if you’re planning to use it for cooking or you care about purity.

Remember, read your labels, discover what you like by trying all kinds of chocolate that come your way, and enjoy!

https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/cocoa-butter-benefits#takeaway

https://www.ghirardelli.com/ground-chocolate-cocoa-information

https://tcho.com/blogs/news/what-cocoa-percentage-tells-you-and-doesnt-tell-you-about-chocolate-1