9th & Larkin Dark Chocolate at the Candy Store
Single-origin chocolate bars to make a mark on your soul
Six years ago this coming winter, on the weekend of March 4–6, 2020, Tammie and I took a trip to her hometown of San Francisco. I did an evening book event on visioning at the amazing Heath Ceramics. And I attended a really great little artisan chocolate show. Everything, in hindsight, was very strange. We knew that something bad was coming, but no one was sure what. We flew home that Monday, and on Tuesday we held the 5th Annual Jelly Bean Jump Up Dinner, our annual fundraising event for SafeHouse Center, at the Roadhouse. (This winter we’ll have the 11th. The annual calendars are out now for sale!) Then, what we all came to call “the pandemic” really started. That weekend, we did very little business. By Monday, dining rooms closed. You know the rest.
Crazy as the weeks, months, and years that followed were, a number of good things came from that trip. A bunch of people learned our visioning process at Heath. It remains a life-changing process that we can all use now more than ever. And although we were all on pins and needles at the chocolate show, I did find some amazing artisan products. Given everything that went down, it’s not shocking that getting them here took a lot longer than it normally would. A couple of weeks ago, one of those products arrived at our Candy Store: single-origin craft chocolate bars from a small company called 9th & Larkin in San Francisco. It’s a good story and a great chocolate.
Founders Lan Phan and Brian Dusseault share that backstory:
One day, we got curious and wanted to make our own chocolate bars—from scratch—in our small kitchen in San Francisco. We can still vividly remember our first few attempts. Beans, husks, and nibs flying in the kitchen, smoke detectors went off, bits and pieces of chocolate stains were everywhere!
I’m glad they stuck with it through that initial awkwardness. A few years later, they had a line of chocolates so good that I’m happy to include them on the list of folks whose bars I love—Shawn Askinosie, French Broad Chocolate, Marou Chocolate from Vietnam, and more. As of a couple weeks ago, we now have a quartet of awesome artisan, bean-to-bar offerings from 9th & Larkin at the Candy Store. They’re made by an engineer (Brian) and an analyst (Lan), which makes sense in the best possible way: The flavors are so clean and elegant that I started to think of them like a world-class classical quartet. Here’s a description of each 9th & Larkin bar we offer:
Vietnam: A dark 70% bar from the region of Tiền Giang on the central east coast, north of Ben Tre. Lan says, “I love this bar because it was my first single-origin bar, and I am Vietnamese, so I always feel connected when getting to work with beans from my country.” Her tasting notes include “brown sugar, nuts, and cinnamon, with hints of figs and persimmon on a solid chocolate background.” It’s wonderfully smooth, with a delicate and intriguing warm bit of spice notes that linger long in the finish.
Tanzania: A super juicy and fruity dark chocolate with 65% cacao from the Kokoa Kamili Co-op. In Swahili, “Kamili” means “precision,” which is a good reflection of the quality of the beans that 9th & Larkin buy. The co-op is located in the Kilombero Valley, near the center of the country—a bit north and east from the other terrific Tanzanian chocolate we get from the Mababu Co-op and Shawn Askinosie. Beautifully balanced, with some lovely low notes, complemented by hints of dried raisins and cashews. A couple of folks have noticed a snippet of citrus in the background as well.
Colombia: A really great bar with 72% cacao. Super smooth, super juicy, super fruity. Lovely tannins. Terrific long finish. From the Tumaco region, on the very far north coast of the country. Something about the flavor just makes it extra special. Light, elegant, dances a little tango on the tongue. You’re likely to find hints of banana, toffee, and almond butter! This one might be my favorite of the four!
Madagascar: Made with cacao from the island’s Sambirano Valley, on the central-west coast of the country, the premier growing region on Madagascar. Bejofo Estate is there—it’s part of the holdings of the Akesson Estate. Bertil Akesson’s father was a Swedish diplomat in the middle of the 20th century. His work took him to the embassy in Paris, and from there to France’s various African colonies, including Cameroon. He ended up settling with his family on the other side of the continent, farming on Madagascar when the island was governed by the French. The Bejofo Estate, from whence this cacao comes, began farming 100 years ago last year, in 1924. They grow the harder-to-find and exceptionally flavorful Trinitario and Criollo cacao beans! Ripe red fruit is the main flavor I get—lots of the dark cherry that Madagascar cacao is famous for, with a citrus to boot!
Everything about the 9th & Larkin bars is done mindfully and well. Lan and Brian created the elegant wrappers for the bars by rolling a dried cacao pod in paint and then rolling that, in turn, onto paper. That pattern was screen printed for production. A lovely way to work that keeps the package congruous with the cacao from which the bars are made. As Lan says:
Eating chocolate is like traveling. What can be a richer experience than tasting food that is cultivated from the sun, the rain, the soil in that area, and taken great care of by the people who harvest, ferment, dry, pack and ship across the seven seas to all around the world where they are made into chocolate?
