On St. Patrick’s Day green chocolate took on a whole new meaning for us. Green-garbed celebrants lined up outside of Boston’s Back Bay bars in the middle of the day as Mark and I walked over the Charles River for a quick chocolate factory tour in nearby Somerville. One of just a few “(cocoa) bean to (chocolate) bar” companies in the country, Taza’s several sustainability commitments make it a very green company.

Taza’s Organic Cacao Beans

Taza’s minimal stone grinding, based on techniques from Mexico, reduces the more commonly intense usage of energy found in most chocolate preparation resulting in a grittier texture.

Hand Crafted Grinding Stones

Sourcing organic beans from Central or South America rather than the more available West African beans diminishes the chocolate company’s carbon footprint. Huge shipping sacks collect the light weight cocoa shells for recycling as mulch or tea. The minimal packaging for the chocolate disks uses recycled bio-degradable materials and until recently was wrapped by hand. Deliveries by bicycle to local customers and via UPS Carbon Neutral program to others, contribute to carbon reduction.

To further human sustainability, Taza avoids cocoa beans tainted by questions of child and slave labor known to be significant in Ghana and Ivory Coast.

Its program for “ethically traded” beans means that it incentivizes quality, visits farmers once a year to inspect workplace standards and conducts its business transparently with each farmer. Working face to face with a 200 farmer-co-op means better financial deals for them as well as the opportunity to assist farmers with improved quality.

*More information about religious and other values in our chocolate may be found in On the Chocolate Trail.