New Chocolate Mexicano discs: Yerba Mate & Cacao Puro

July 15, 2009

Taza fans, I'm excited to announce the launch of two new Taza mexicano discs -- Yerba Mate Chocolate Mexicano and Cacao Puro Chocolate Mexicano. We've spent the last few months developing these varieties, working hard to get the balance of flavors just right. For the Cacao Puro, that balance is everything, since it contains only two ingredients: organic roasted cacao and raw cane sugar. Since we came up with the first Chocolate Mexicano (cinnamon), we've received many requests for a "plain" version. We always knew we'd get around to making the Puro; we just didn't know when. Now that we finally have it, it's hard to understand why we waited so long. Cacao Puro is both a blank slate and a showcase for our unbelievable single origin Dominican cacao. Feel free to cook with it or use it in a beverage, but Cacao Puro is best experienced as an eating chocolate.
The idea for Yerba Mate Chocolate Mexicano is much more recent, and came not from our founders or even from our chocolate maker, but from our neighbors at Albertine Press. Rebecca from Albertine, the old-school printing press which prints our gift boxes, approached us with the idea of combining our Mexican-style stone ground chocolate with a traditional Argentinian flavor, ie. Yerba Mate. At first we balked, but the idea stuck around and kept popping up in discussions of potential new products. Clearly, there was something compelling about it, and so we went looking for Mate powder to make a test batch. That first batch was tastier than we ever expected (and more than a little stimulating), and so we went looking for a source for Mate. Yerba Mate is a tea-like plant, and a popular stimulant in South America, where it's consumed in place of coffee, tea, or chocolate. We had the good fortune of meeting the fine folks at EcoTeas, who sell some of the country's best Mate. Grown on the Kraus Family farm in Argentina, the Mate we use in our chocolate is unsmoked and mild in flavor. It's reminiscent of green tea, but with a grassier edge. Its flavor pairs inexplicably well with the berry notes of our cacao, and when we tasted them together, Yerba Mate Chocolate Mexicano was a done deal.
-AJF