A few weeks ago, I went to the New York Chocolate Show.  This is my second trip--.  Two years ago, I went to every booth, picked up 100 cards, bought 11 lbs of Guittard chocolate, and loved it.  Last year, I was out of town.  This year, the show moved, but I had a great excuse to go whenenimatique  came to visit that weekend.  And, finally, I'm posting about it so that I don't forget what I found:

• The Chocolate Show website
• Republica de Cacao, an importer for Ecuadorean Chocolate.  Their samples were single-origin, and impressively smooth for their high cocoa content.
• SerendipiTea - They had a bunch of nice teas, including several that involved cocoa or chocolate mint (which is an actual plant, not always chocolate + mint).  They even had one blend that made roiboos palatable to me, which was surprising.
• TCHO - A new bean-to-bar company out of San Francisco which is taking a different approach to retail chocolate.  They're creating several flavors, and are marketing their chocolates by flavor.  The rest of the industry is getting more elitist, in a way: if you are a connoiseur, you have an opinion about the varietals, about South America vs. African vs. Carribbean plantations, etc. etc.  Meanwhile, TCHO is ditching all of that and selling, for instance, a "fruity" bar.  It'll always be fruity, regardless of where exactly all the beans come from in any given batch.  I like the idea.  Unfortunately, I didn't like their overall taste-- their chocolates weren't particularly interesting except for the flavors.
• Pralus - I LOVE Pralus.  ali_wildgoose  gave me one of their sampler cubes two years ago, and it was the coolest thing I've tried perhaps ever with chocolate.  Now, there's a chance that they might be my single-source supplier ... and they're starting an organic line.  Yay!
•   Sweetriot - I've enjoyed their chocolate-covered cacao nibs before.  What stood out for me at the show was that they were taking a very political approach in their marketing --riot, picket signs, motto 'fix the world'-- but I couldn't tell, looking at any of their stuff, what they are doing that is on a moral high ground.  Are they fair trade?  Maybe.  They announce that one of their flavors is organic (what about the others?) ... what about the rest of their branding?
• Crossings - brings over "French Epicurean Specialties".  They're in Whole Foods, and they had some really nice pear chocolates, yum.
• Cotton Tree Lodge - is a sort of mini-resort (eco-tourism, perhaps?) that focuses a bunch on chocolate.  They have bean-to-bar workshops.  They're in Belize.
• R.J.M. Trading wasn't selling anything of their own ... they're specialty food brokers.  They caught my attention because Guittard wasn't at the Chocolate Show this year ... but R.J.M. sells them.
• 5th Avenue Chocolatiere - a little candy and chocolate shop at 693 3rd Ave. (not 5th Ave?  Really?).  They don't do very fancy chocolates, but I think that they do hot chocolate.
• Christopher Norman Chocolates - One of the older New York chocolatiers, and a fancy and good one.  They make BEAUTIFUL chocolates, and the sample that I tasted, a passionfruit creme, was perfectly done-- passionfruit tends to be either too sweet or too tart.  I had a fascinating conversation with one of the founders about chocolate piracy and other sketchy behavior on the part of retailers and rival chocolatiers in NYC.  Who knew?
• Virginie Duroc-Danner, Artiste Chocolatiere - made beautiful, beautiful chocolates.  She claimed that they are all hand-painted, but they had sure signs of being cocoa transfers... perhaps the transfers were all hand-painted before being transferred.  Either way, they were gorgeous, and gorgeously boxed.  I don't know about the taste-- no samples!
• Chocovision - They didn't have a full display out this year (just one of each machine), but I have to give them a shout-out.  They made the tempering machine that my crazy college friends gave me and with which I'm completely delighted.  I stopped by this year to try to buy some extra baffle scraper-blades to replace the one of mine that has worn to the shape of the bowl, and they just gave it to me, and chatted about upcoming products.  Nice guys!
• Mary's Chocolates - You wouldn't expect a company with a name like this to be Japanese, but not only is Mary's Chocolates Japanese, but they are all that is right about Japanese food production.  Their crafting is immaculate and obsessively detailed.  Their flavors have been worked and reworked to perfection (you must try their green tea or plum wine chocolates, they are apotheotic).  Their packaging is so beautiful that it might be a product of its own.  There's just nothing wrong with them, except that they're expensive and only available in Japan, outside of the Chocolate Show.  There's good reason that oneangryrabbit  made a special trip for them while in Japan, and that I gave a box of their chocolates from this show to ali_wildgoose  as an anniversary gift.

That's a shorter list than I had before ... partly I am getting used to the regularly attending vendors, but in addition there were several notable absences.  Guttard was not their on their own.  A fun spice wholesaler that was there before had not returned.  Chocovision reduced their presence.  There were fewer countries with their own booths.  Is it the economy, the change in venue, both, or something else?</li></ul></lj>