El Buen Cacao owners Erik Landis and Jessica Ramirez held a tour of their factory Thursday morning. Kids and adults were enthralled with the chocolate making process from start to finish.   Photo by Jenny Kirchner

The owners of El Buen Cacao, Erik Landis and Jessica Ramirez, pride themselves on their dark chocolate made on-site from the main ingredient, cacao. The cacao beans are sourced from the jungles of Central and South America and grown by farms that practice fair labor.

Keeping the chocolate healthy with no processed ingredients — including no dairy or gluten — resulting in a variety of different truffles, coffee drinks and chocolate bars that are actually good for you. 

Photos by Jenny Kirchner

The chocolatiers recently started giving tours of their factory so everyone can experience what goes into the process. 

With an average of 80% true dark chocolate, there’s a little more to it than a bit of sugar or a small amount of another whole ingredient, depending on what flavor they are trying to achieve.

The masterminds, and husband and wife team, originally began making chocolate in their home about eight years ago. They slowly started learning by trial and error how to build their dream of learning about and making chocolate into a reality.

When asked about why they got into the chocolate business, Landis said, “Both my wife and I were contract archaeologists, but have always loved the history of chocolate. So why not in our spare time make chocolate that has less crap in it? It grew from there.”  

While the chocolate making varies each week depending on how many customers they have, Landis said, “On average we make between 250 and 300 pounds of chocolate each week, give or take some.”

If you have a passion for chocolate, want to learn a bit about the 5,000 year history of chocolate, or just want to see how El Buen Cacao makes chocolate, take a tour of the little factory that makes big chocolate. You may reserve a spot on their website www.elbuencacao.com.