Page 57 - #64 eng 电子版

All these reasons pushed the brothers to move back Asia. A “bean to bar” chocolate makers make their own
to South Korea. Before they immigrated to their parent’s chocolate from the cocoa bean itself, usually without
homeland, they decided to take the best product that disturbing the process or quality of the cocoa bean that
Venezuela could offer. After doing a market research, they are using. This original idea of the gourmet or
they found two potential products that could be inter- micro-batch chocolate makers is exactly the culture Jon
esting to Seoul and rest of the country: rum and choc- and Dan want to promote and pursue to grow in the
olates. However, after a more careful research, they have South Korea and other Asian countries. Of course, the
concluded that chocolate had more merit and more main variation they try to push and promote is plain
potential, thus, they chose chocolate. The main reason chocolate bars according to the origin of its cacao.
they decided to work with chocolate is because people However, everything takes time and the brothers un-
are overall not very much well informed about this derstand that they should take it step by step, introduc-
product. The simple fact is this, “the best chocolate ing other blended flavors such as coffee, earl grey,
comes from the best cacao.” The taste of chocolate is spices, etc., to diversify the chocolate possibilities and
determined by the variety and quality of varieties. “Well, it’s quite difficult any-
the cocoa bean. This fact is very similar where to start a business in foreign
to coffee, so the specialty concept was country. Even though, it’s our parent’s
picked from specialty coffee. The terroir motherland, we have not lived or worked
and the origin of the cacao bean matters here before, so, there were some culture
a lot. So the cocoa the brothers chose to shocks here and there, but nothing that
import from Venezuela, is single-origin we couldn’t adjust.” As Korean market
chocolates. The chocolates are organized has matured and got into chocolate, the
not only by the percentages of cacao customers found P.chokko by them-
content but they are also organized by selves. Their main customers right
the origin of the cocoa. noware chocolate lovers with a mix of
Nevertheless, moving to a new un- coffee aficionados, that appreciate sin-
known country, even if it is a place of gle-origin chocolate. Other clients will
origin of your family, may be difficult as Cocoa be bakeries, pâtisseries, and other coffee
well as starting a business there. As the shops in Seoul and other parts of Korea
two say, back then the Korean market like Cocoa beans are the fermented like Busan and Jeju Island.
seeds of the cacao tree, whose
a lot of other countries, was misinformed Latin name is Theobroma Talking of coffee aficionados, Dan
about the chocolate industry. Due to the cacao, which means “Food of and Jon are not strangers to coffee
industrialization era, chocolate became an the Gods”. It is native to the themselves: this February they did a
obviously popular product, that is used Amazon region and as the collaboration with a coffee brand from
almost for any occasion and any product. meaning suggests, it was histor- Seoul, Center Coffee. The companies
ically considered a very
People simply cannot get enough of it. So important crop in Central and did seven new pairings of single origin
the price may range greatly, depending on South America. chocolate with single origin coffees,
the quality, and most of the time the pref- and called it “The Pars”. Center Coffee
erence goes to the cheaper kinds as it can be mixed with developed special drip bags and all together it was pre-
anuthing else and produced in bigger amounts. This al- sented as St.Valentine’s and Luner New Year’s gift sets.
lowed overtime a degradation of the quality of chocolate. This special occasion pairing was a great success for
In today’s market very few chocolates reveal the quality both companies. In fact, as Jon shared, big amount of
and/or origin of their beans, due to the fact that most of specialty coffee shops in Seoul does help them to pro-
them will be a blended chocolate with other cacaos or mote specialty chocolate, simply due to the nature of
even other cheaper substitutes. these places where aficionados looking not only for
Currently, P.Chokko imports chocolate from Ven- coffee but also for something unique and high quali-
ezuela. However, they have started importing machinery ty. “I think there’s more for us to learn from special-
and cacao to promote the idea of the “bean to bar” ty coffee. There’s long way to go for chocolate and
process within the chocolate industry and possibly in the opportunities and possibilities are endless.

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