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[TxdoHawk]

http://qz.com/571151/the-mast-broth...buying-crappy-hipster-chocolate-for-10-a-bar/

It is truly poetic that this all goes down in Williamsburg, kingdom of shitty white men with thick beards and thicker bullshit stories.

Whether you’ve seen their beautifully wrapped bars for sale at Shake Shack or Rag & Bone, featured in the pages of the New York Times or Vogue, or decorating one of their New York, London, or soon, LA shops, Mast Brothers chocolate bars have become the world’s most prominent brand of artisanal chocolate.

But while customers can’t get enough of the company’s bearded, Brooklyn hipster founders, and their brilliantly marketed, $10 “bean to bar” chocolates, a term reserved for chocolate that has been produced entirely under the maker’s control, from the cocoa bean to the wrapped bar, chocolate experts have shunned them.

... there is evidence that at least some of their early production involved remelting chocolate bought from Valrhona, a commercial French chocolate manufacturer.

...

While multiple chocolate experts echoed these sentiments to both Scott and to Quartz, in part four of his series, Scott provides accounts from multiple sources who spoke to the Masts—over email, on the phone and in person—about their use of Valrhona chocolate.

In February 2008, Oklahoma chef Larry Gober reached out to Rick Mast about buying Mast Brothers chocolate, as shown in emails on the DallasFood blog and provided to Quartz. He also asked where they were sourcing their chocolate from. Rick told him that they mostly sourced from Venezuela, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Madagascar. “We also receive cocoa paste from Valrhona that we will sometimes use as a base as we experiment with new recipes,” they told him. “We are from bean to bar and hope to be exclusively bean to bar by the end of the year once our ‘laboratory’ is complete.”.

Part of the Mast Brothers’ story is that the brothers are self-taught chocolate-making MacGyvers, the first of their kind, inventing and rejiggering equipment to fit their chocolate needs.

“We’ve had to come up with how everything is done every step of the way because there was no such thing as small-batch chocolate makers,” Rick told an Australian publication.

Their 2013 cookbook, Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook, describes “roasting in a coffee drum roaster… three pounds of beans at a time,” “cracking cacao shells with a hand mill used for crushing barley in home brewing,” and “winnow[ing] the husks from the nibs using fans, or even hair dryers.”

“There’s no such thing as commercial equipment for [small-batch chocolate making]. You can’t say, I’m going to start a small chocolate company and then go online and get a couple of machines,” they told NPR in 2010.

But in reality, by the time Michael and Rick started making and selling chocolate in 2007, there were already a number of American small-batch chocolate makers on the market, as one of the proprietors of those businesses, Shawn Askinosie of Askinosie Chocolate, wrote for the Huffington Post earlier this year. Scharffen Berger was founded in 1997, Askinosie started in 2005, and Theo sold its first organic chocolate in 2006, just to name a few.

In truth, despite their claim that they “had come up with how everything is done every step of the way,” the Masts picked up at least some of their knowledge on the thriving online community of chocolate makers that has existed for more than a decade. A public website, Chocolate Alchemy, is a hub of information, where chocolate makers could trade tips and advice for making small-batch chocolate. The website even included the tip about the blowdryer. Its earliest posts are dated October 3, 2003.

This site is also where the brothers bought some of their first equipment, as the founder, John Nanci, has confirmed to Quartz. In March 2009, on a tour of the first Williamsburg factory site, George Gensler—a co-founder of the Manhattan Chocolate Society and member of the Grand Jury for the International Chocolate Awards—saw and photographed the “Crankandstein Cocoa Mill,” developed in collaboration with Nanci specifically for the purpose of cracking cacao shells. Nanci has confirmed to Quartz that he sold the machine to Michael Mast on March 13, 2008. The note from Mast included in the order read, “We can’t thank you enough for all you have done. Your site is amazing.” Mast also separately ordered a 70kg bag of organic cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic with the note “Thanks for all of your incredible work and information. We could never have done this without you.”

It is impossible to know whether or not the company is currently making chocolate entirely bean-to-bar because, as several experts pointed out to Quartz, there is no transparency.

In their cookbook, the Mast Brothers propound on the importance of transparency as early as page 5. “Be honest and transparent. We demand integrity in everything we do and eagerly open ourselves up to the world with pride. That’s why we opened a craft chocolate factory in the middle of New York City!”
But throughout the writing of this story, the company has refused to answer any specific questions, from whether Mast Brothers has investors to what kind of equipment the company uses. At its Williamsburg factory, the tour instructions were explicit: no photographs and no notes. The Brooklyn Navy Yard factory, where the tour guide said about two-thirds of the company’s production is done, is closed to the public.

They have also stopped listing the source of the beans, omitting one of the most critical elements of a bean-to-bar chocolate label, despite proclamations in their book about “connect[ing] customers to the source.” The 2016 line of flavored bars, which include sheep’s milk, mint, and olive oil, no longer lists bean origin, though a tour guide at the Williamsburg location said they are still single-origin with just a couple of exceptions. The guide cited two reasons for not listing the origins: Because it encourages more conversation between retailers and customers—even though a lot of chocolate is sold off premises and wholesale—and because it looks better aesthetically to have less information on the label.

Other chocolate makers offer a different explanation: “It means that it could be virtually anything,” Pollard told Quartz.

 

[AlteredBeast]

I don't care where it comes from, a $10 chocolate bar means you got scammed when there are dozens of amazing bars for 3, 4, or $5.

 

[John Kowalski]

[...] and we have the audacity to think that we are pretty good at it too.

woof

 

[ponpo]

Those white men and their thick beards are at it again!!!!

 

[Effnine]

$10 chocolate bar? lol ... suckers

 

[maquiladora]

$10 chocolate bar? lol ... suckers

 

[nitewulf]

NYC is done bros. Time to move to Portland.

 

[rrs]

You can get fair trade bars for less

 

[Union Carbine]

Disappointing. I've enjoyed their chocolate in the past but prefer a darker chocolate than what they produce. You can find their bars around NYC for less than $10 though it's still expensive. Reading the article now.

 

[exmachina64]

Excellent exposé by Quartz and Scott, glad to see the Mast Brothers get their comeuppance.

 

[gohepcat]

I don't think I've ever seen such outrage over something so meaningless.

If people like the final product and think it's worth 10 dollars who the fuck cares if years ago they used melted chocolate.

I say good for them. If you can convince people to pay 10 bucks with a romantic story then you deserve that cash.

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

I can get a Peanut Butter Snickers for like a buck and be totally satisfied. Ten dollar chocolate bars are for suckers with too much expendable income.

 

[CrocMother]

I can get a Peanut Butter Snickers for like a buck and be totally satisfied. Ten dollar chocolate bars are for suckers with too much expendable income.

That is a major market in Brooklyn

 

[lastflowers]

I don't think I've ever seen such outrage over something so meaningless.

If people like the final product and think it's worth 10 dollars who the fuck cares if years ago they used melted chocolate.

I say good for them. If you can convince people to pay 10 bucks with a romantic story then you deserve that cash.

. Yep.

 

[way more]

You can get fair trade bars for less

But can you get organic? I know a sub-$10 bar is fine for most people but once you try some good stuff the difference is night and day, like small batch roasted coffee vs Starbucks. Choc-Culture offers the same variety of quality that you find in beer, audio, and and other foods. Those who demand excellence know it comes at a price.

 

[DiscoJer]

Eh. Considering that 5 hour energy is basically caffeine in water for what, $2 a bottle, this is far from the biggest trendy food scam.

But can you get organic? I know a sub-$10 bar is fine for most people but once you try some good stuff the difference is night and day, like small batch roasted coffee vs Starbucks. Choc-Culture offers the same variety of quality that you find in beer, audio, and and other foods. Those who demand excellence know it comes at a price.

Eh. I think a lot of that is a placebo effect. People think it's better because it's expensive, but it's really not.

 

[Nonoriri]

I can get a Peanut Butter Snickers for like a buck and be totally satisfied. Ten dollar chocolate bars are for suckers with too much expendable income.

I'm sure there's something you don't settle for a shitty version of.

 

[George Oscar Bluth II]

This probably has great sales at Whole Foods Market.

 

[rrs]

But can you get organic? I know a sub-$10 bar is fine for most people but once you try some good stuff the difference is night and day, like small batch roasted coffee vs Starbucks. Choc-Culture offers the same variety of quality that you find in beer, audio, and and other foods. Those who demand excellence know it comes at a price.

Yeah, I've had some organic stuff that's quite good but I usually won't pay for the difference

 

[Zia]

I've never had a bar but I've some good cookies that used Mast Brothers chocolate from spots like Blue Bottle.

Confused about the controversy. So, at one point it's alleged they used Valrhona base? Okay?

 

[Slayven]

I've never had a bar but I've some good cookies that used Mast Brothers chocolate from spots like Blue Bottle.

Confused about the controversy. So, at one point it's alleged they used Valrhona base? Okay?

They talked mad shit about being against "Big Chocolate"

 

[Union Carbine]

But can you get organic? I know a sub-$10 bar is fine for most people but once you try some good stuff the difference is night and day, like small batch roasted coffee vs Starbucks. Choc-Culture offers the same variety of quality that you find in beer, audio, and and other foods. Those who demand excellence know it comes at a price.

I tend to agree. There's probably some point along the curve at which you're paying a lot more for very little gains but I don't pretend to know where that is. $10 is probably above that point but doesn't Anthony Bourdain have a $20 chocolate bar out there? I love chocolate so I don't mind splurging for a more expensive bar ($5+) now and again.

I love the sense of superiority being bandied about in here-- as if craft foods aren't a thing. I guess all these gaffers just drink eat and drink just the cheapest thing they can get their hands on, because anything more expensive is just for suckers.

 

[Ekdrm2d1]

I don't care where it comes from, a $10 chocolate bar means you got scammed when there are dozens of amazing bars for 3, 4, or $5.

Winning gold isn't cheap. Don't think I've ever bought gold winning chocolate that was under $10.

On topic. Just bought their Olive Oil bar for my mom's Christmas gift. Always nice for the chocolate bar to be composed of only three ingredients! Cacao butter, sugar, and olive oil.

 

[buttery fistful]

sorry, this adds nothing to the discussion but i laugh at and love the word "artisanal"

 

[Zia]

They talked mad shit about being against "Big Chocolate"

Yeah, that's pretty lame, I guess I just don't think that it's a big deal? For the most part I've heard that they've put out good product. Food culture thrives on buzzwords and I guess I just don't buy the snake oil salesman vibe the article's giving off.

 

[Ekdrm2d1]

There is a new gold winner that I found up in Seattle that I didn't buy. It was $18

http://www.internationalchocolateawards.com/2015/10/world-final-winners-2015/

Soma Chocolate (Canada) – Porcelana

Wonder why a lot of the gold winners are Criollo bean based.

 

[Ekdrm2d1]

I only have one bar that won two golds. It's the Akesson's Madagascar Ambolikapiky Plantation.

 

[SolidChamp]

I'll stick to Lindt chocolate, thanks.

I don't get this hipster nonsense. And all for what, 70% cacao being the craft chocolate standard? Yuck.

 

[Archer]

NYC is done bros. Time to move to Portland.

Fuck Portland.

 

[SwolBro]

$10 for a shitty tasting chocolate bar. Goddamn hippies man.

 

[Ekdrm2d1]

Hotel Chocolat c/o the Rabot Estate plantation needs more recognition.
http://www.hotelchocolat.com/uk/rabot-estate/saint-lucia

Their Vietnam bar was one of the best I've ever had.

The new kid on the block, Vietnam has crashed onto the chocolate scene and is making a huge impact. Cocoa is believed to have been introduced to Vietnam in the late 1800's by Dr. Alexandre Yersin, an understudy to Louis Pasteur. His venture did not flourish and it wasn't until the 21st century that cocoa started to be cultivated on a more professional level. Cocoa is currently grown by more than 12,000 farmers who typically cultivate on plots of 1 to 3 hectares.

http://www.hotelchocolat.com/uk/shop/collections/products/rabot-1745/vietnam-dark-chocolate-bar

 

[Beartruck]

I don't think I've ever seen such outrage over something so meaningless.

If people like the final product and think it's worth 10 dollars who the fuck cares if years ago they used melted chocolate.

I say good for them. If you can convince people to pay 10 bucks with a romantic story then you deserve that cash.

You call it a romantic story, I call it purposeful deceit about their company and its practices, but hey, tomato-tomatoe.

 

[EulaCapra]

I did not know that there was such high drama in the chocolate business.

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

I don't think I've ever seen such outrage over something so meaningless.

If people like the final product and think it's worth 10 dollars who the fuck cares if years ago they used melted chocolate.

I say good for them. If you can convince people to pay 10 bucks with a romantic story then you deserve that cash.

No it's fraudulent to mislead people on what they're buying.

 

[Grifter]

I'm sure there's something you don't settle for a shitty version of.

This post is sweeter than a pan of melted Valrhona's.

 

[Union Carbine]

You call it a romantic story, I call it purposeful deceit about their company and its practices...

Bingo.

 

[ryseing]

Eh. I think a lot of that is a placebo effect. People think it's better because it's expensive, but it's really not.

That's like saying a nice bottle of wine is only better because it's expensive, when blind taste tests prove otherwise.

You can get quality stuff for a decent price no matter the area, but generally you get what you pay for.

Thanks for the link OP. The article and the linked Slate piece were both very good.

 

[KarmaCow]

That's like saying a nice bottle of wine is only better because it's expensive, when blind taste tests prove otherwise.

You can get quality stuff for a decent price no matter the area, but generally you get what you pay for.

Thanks for the link OP. The article and the linked Slate piece were both very good.

I remember this going around for a while and it matches up with my experience, though I'm not into wine.

Well this isn't ultra expensive wine but the idea is the same.

 

[wenis]

I did not know that there was such high drama in the chocolate business.

There's drama in everything.

 

[Dennis]

So über hipsters turn out to be frauds.

Why am I not surprised?

 

[adamsappel]

I don't think I've ever seen such outrage over something so meaningless.

If people like the final product and think it's worth 10 dollars who the fuck cares if years ago they used melted chocolate.

I say good for them. If you can convince people to pay 10 bucks with a romantic story then you deserve that cash.

. Yep.

Think of a thing you like. Now imagine that the makers of it have lied to you about how it's made, and have charged you a premium for that. That's okay with you?

 

[Sparrowhawk]

I did not know that there was such high drama in the chocolate business.

You seen Willy Wonka bruh?

 

[way more]

Never trust a white man with a thick beard

Even the beards are fake.


Their Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/_UU1n1vxn6/

How they see themselves

From a Twitter account. https://twitter.com/extramsg/status/676935067864858624?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

A pair of Biz Frat Bros realized the future, and it was beards.

 

[Crud]

Never trust a white man with a thick beard

XD holy fuck lmao.

 

[Risible]

Why all of the references to the fact that they're white?

 

[B_Spooky13]

There's a 5 lb. Hershey bar at my gas station for $50

 

[Beaulieu]

I don't think I've ever seen such outrage over something so meaningless.

If people like the final product and think it's worth 10 dollars who the fuck cares if years ago they used melted chocolate.

I say good for them. If you can convince people to pay 10 bucks with a romantic story then you deserve that cash.

yeah. seems like they are trying to create a "scandal" where there is none

 

[oneils]

This article's source is a Dallas food blog. They have a four part series about this. It's a pretty interesting read: http://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behind-the-beards-part-1-tastetexture/

Edit: the "scandal" is that they mislead customers into thinking their chocolate was small batch handmade. It wasn't. I agree, though, that it's not the worst thing ever. Pretty sleazy, though.

 

[Staccat0]

yeah. seems like they are trying to create a "scandal" where there is none

Perhaps it's just important for people to hate "hipsters" in order to feel a little better about being on the internet all day.

 

[entremet]

I stick with Lindt's Excellence 80 percent. Good quality and affordable.

No need for this faux artisanal garbage.