Chokaico Craft Chocolate

Ay Dios Mío
Chokaico, West Hartford
November 2023

Chocolate is an indulgence. For now, I’d like you to indulge me. Let me tell you a story.

A story that involves serendipity, talent, and love.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? This same story also involves Ecuador, Le Cirque, David Byrne, bongos, world-wide concert tours, and autism.

Sounds like a whole cast of characters and certainly nothing at all to do with a tiny West Hartford chocolate operation, right? Except that this story is about one man, Fernando Velez, and his journey from growing up in a town near Guayaquil, Ecuador to making high-end single-sourced bean-to-bar dark chocolate in his West Hartford home.

I think it’s a story worth reading.

And although I’ve met Fernando and have spent a good deal of time chatting with him, some of the details of this story come from a YouTube interview Fernando did with a show called Bean To Bar World.

Cacao (the bean that chocolate is derived from) used to be Ecuador’s top export back in the day, before oil and bananas took over. Young Fernando grew up near some cacao plantations and a chocolate factory. The aroma permeated the first 19 years of his life. And it never left him.

Fernando’s uncles owned small farms with some cacao trees and he’d help harvest the beans once in a while, but he never wanted to get into the cacao farming or processing business. In fact, he wanted to be a petroleum engineer (the next big thing in Ecuador at the time), then architecture, then aviation.

None of that worked out – he was told he was too short to be a pilot, for example – and he fell into graphic design with his brother. And where does one go to succeed in graphic design and advertising?

Why, New York City of course. And how does one supplement his starting salary doing graphic design and advertising in New York City? By waiting tables at the renowned Le Cirque restaurant of course. Yes, our hero Fernando found himself working at the top restaurant in New York in the 1980’s… where Daniel Boulud, among others, plied their trade. It was here that young Fernando was exposed to high-end desserts and world renowned pastry chefs.

An adolescence next to a cacao farm and a chocolate processor. Twenties spent in design and marketing while learning fancy desserts through proximity. (He also worked as a server other New York places like Palio, Remi, Harlequin, and The Russian Tea Room if you’re familiar.) Surely this led straight to the business of Chokaico.

No. For you see, a fellow Le Cirque server was moving back to his native Uruguay and had no way of bringing his busted up bongos with him. So he gave them to Fernando. And what does one do with free bongos in need of repair?

One gets them fixed. Then one bangs on bongos for fun. Maybe take a few lessons, nothing serious.

Then one day another friend invites him to join the Latin ska/reggae band King Changó. “But I don’t really know how to bongo, hermano!” said Fernando. “Go take real lessons, we need you.”

So he did. And before he knew it, he was doing shows with King Changó. At one such show in New York, none other than David Byrne was in the crowd and if you know David Byrne, you know he loves world music and apparently that included King Changó. He signed them to his label immediately and that led to a world tour.

Oh, it gets better. After that band, and another short-lived one, a bunch of the same guys formed another band and hooked up with one of the greatest singers and entertainers of a generation, Sharon Jones. Yes, Fernando the chocolate maker was a Dap King… as in Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Playing bongos… all because he was gifted some busted bongos from some Uruguayan guy.

If you are unfamiliar with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, get familiar. They are… fun!. Super talented. They groove, they bounce, they swoon. And they bongo. Boy do they ever bongo. They toured and toured and played shows with Prince, Smokey Robinson, Earth Wind and Fire, Beck, Dave Matthews and many, many more. Despite this exciting life, Fernando found himself yearning for that dark Ecuadorean chocolate of his younger years anytime he found himself in a chocolate shop in Brussels or Paris or Oslo or Geneva.

Sure, the Europeans made good chocolate, but it was nothing compared to what Fernando remembered from the other side of the world. He was missing that Ecuadorean taste.

Things were going great when Sharon Jones was sadly diagnosed with cancer. Bad cancer. Chemotherapy chased it away for a short while, but it returned before she suffered a stroke while watching the 2016 presidential election results. She died shortly thereafter. An incredibly sad loss to be sure. Seriously, ask your smart device to play Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings tonight; I don’t care what your choice of music is, you’ll like it. Or just watch this entire concert:

Fernando moved around around a bit, his wife had a son, and they settled in northern New Jersey. His son was born with a congenital heart defect and was later diagnosed with autism, so life sort of started over again, back to graphic design. Family was paramount, so world traveling was off the table.

Around that time, in 2019, a cousin in Ecuador was getting serious about making his own chocolate. He sent some samples north to New Jersey and got some honest feedback. It was good, though a little bloomed and a little grainy. What the cousin needed was a Spectra 11 chocolate melanger of course, but they cost three times more in Ecuador than in the States.

Fernando to the rescue! He purchased the machinery and was all set to bring it to Ecuador for his cousin.

Enter the pandemic and the lockdowns and the inability to fly to and from Ecuador – especially with an immuno-compromised child. What else was Fernando to do than to use that $500 machine himself? After all, he was bored and stuck at home in New Jersey. Creative people gotta create, y’know? He ordered some nibs from the Dominican Republic, watched a bunch of YouTube videos, learned about bowl tempering methods, and did his best.

His first attempts were alright, but nowhere near perfect. He ordered some cacao beans from his cousin’s farm in Ecuador as well as some liquor (pure cocoa in liquid or semi-solid form), bought a roaster, a cracker(?), a winnower, and a Champion juicer. And he tried again. And got addicted to the whole thing. The process, the science, the exacting nature of the perfect bean-to-bar chemistry. Fernando became very popular among his friends, especially those from Central America who missed the intoxicating dark chocolate of home.

Those same friends convinced him to start selling what he’d been giving them for free. Even so, this business wouldn’t pay the bills so Fernando was still working on graphic design remotely but would use his free time to make chocolate. He started an Instagram account and figured it would be fun to sell to friends and friends of friends. Then random people started buying it, despite his bars being expensive. A local coffee shop hosted a pop-up event for Fernando and then he got more pop-ups. His small, square, expensive bars were selling and he was gaining a small following.

This was all in New Jersey still, but Fernando’s life is all about change. His wife wanted to move to Connecticut. Her family is here and she was aware of West Hartford’s reputation for special needs education and programming. Fernando was a bit frustrated – he had a chocolate following in north Jersey! He loved being near New York City! He knew nothing about Connecticut! So many boring white people! (My words, not his, to be clear.)

Mid-pandemic real estate was bananas of course, which meant he made a good chunk of money on his house which allowed him to move his family to West Hartford. Those of us with special needs kids who live in West Hartford understand this, but assuming you don’t, our town is pretty darn great for families like Fernando’s and mine. (I wrote a little thank you to my son’s elementary educators in 2016 if you’re interested.)

In Fernando’s words, regarding the services his son receives at the same elementary school my son Damian went to, “it felt like moving from New Jersey to Norway. It’s very progressive here. It’s incredible. We love it.” I talk to friends around the country all the time and know that what Damian gets from our town is so far beyond what other kids get elsewhere (including, sadly, neighboring towns and cities let alone states). Of course, this bond my family shares with the chocolate family a couple miles away is strong.

When Fernando says “I can’t just drive all around trying to market myself or spend a day at a coffee shop in Canton because of my son,” I get that. I’ve been there. I tell the story over and over – CTMQ began for this very reason. My family is very limited in what we can do and where we can go. So this website began out of the necessity of being close to home.

And Chokaico’s slow growth is tied to Fernando’s responsibilities to his family. And I love that more than anything. I get that. I feel that.

So in a sense, I’d be a fan of Chokaico regardless of the quality of the chocolate. But CTMQ readers know that I’m honest to a fault here, so when I say that these are some of the best dark chocolates on the planet, you know that’s my honest opinion.

As of early 2024, the business only makes and sells dark chocolate. He’s tried making milk chocolate, but the tempering process is a pain and hard to make perfect. And Fernando needs perfection. Like, obsessive perfection. His set up is small and tight, but is climate controlled. An air conditioner keeps the ambient temperature constantly below 70 degrees and a dehumidifier keeps things below 50% humidity. My man made batches in different parts of his house to find the best possible micro-climate to make his bars.

Entering 2024, the business model is still small and very high-end. With his Cottage license from the state, he can sell out of his home and at pop-ups… but not farmer’s markets or stores. He gets the raw materials from his cousin in Ecuador as often as possible. Chocolate liquor and cacao beans. Other beans are sourced from chocolate plantations around Central and South America and places as far-flung as India and Fiji.

He sells “single region” bars as well as “single estate” bars. The provenance is very important and each has a distinctive flavor – Fernando claims to be able to tell where these “single” chocolates come from by taste alone. The bean to bar process is tightly controlled. Each batch goes through his machines to an exacting minute at an exact temperature and humidity. He’s done the work through lots of (delicious) trial and error. How much cacao, how much butter, how much sugar, etc. He knows when to roast and where in his house to roast depending on time of the year.

Fernando’s stated goal is to “make mind-blowing chocolates.” He’s not shy about adding adjuncts or methods to intensify certain flavors. He uses exotic products like palo santo wood and gin. He’s also not shy about charging a premium. These are not sweet chocolates; they are to be savored and discussed.

Fernando fully recognizes the difficult market he’s entered. People are not used to paying that much for “candy.”

“But this isn’t candy,” he’d say. People are used to sweeter chocolates.

“But this is dark chocolate,” he’d say.

He recognizes that he sounds like a chocolate snob. He has responses to every question and can explain that his source materials are incredibly expensive and difficult to come by. Fernando has tentative plans to expand out of his house, but knows his limitations – and relatively limited market. But gosh darn I want him to succeed.

Remember 2,000 words ago said that Chokaico is serendipitous? And if you believe in fate, you’ll love this. The stag he uses as his mold was chosen more or less at random back in New Jersey simply because he thought it looked cool. After moving to the Hartford region he was told about “Hartford” but never fully realized that the etymology of “Hartford” is the “ford where harts cross,” or “deer river crossing.”

My man chose the perfect logo for a business in the Hartford area. (Yes, he’s fully aware of The Hartford insurance company.)

There are a lot of top tier chocolate makers in Connecticut. Many are small. Some are very small. But no one to my knowledge is as small or as top tier as Chokaico of West Hartford. Do yourselves a favor and follow Fernando as the business (hopefully) grows and gains a following. You’ll thank me later.

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