Chocolate is for more than just the holidays. To that point, I let three major holidays — those in December and Valentine’s Day — pass before I wrote this story.
Last year, I met a craft chocolatier at a local wine event. He is Will Lydgate, an heir to Lydgate Farms in Kauai, Hawaii. When we spoke via phone just before the holidays, Lydgate was short on sleep, having just watched his family business earn a silver medal at the Cocoa of Excellence Awards in Paris.
“It’s a Central European award show. … I was up late but am thrilled,” he said.
A California native, Lydgate moved with his family to Hawaii as a teen, following in the footsteps of his great-great grandfather, who arrived in the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1865 and worked as a surveyor and botanist as well as for the fellow who first brought cacao trees to Hawaii, Lydgate recalled.
But first, let me introduce you to Michael Orlando, owner/founder of 24 Blackbirds on Santa Barbara’s Eastside.
After he studied both marine biology and chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Orlando was employed as a chemist at UCSB when he leaned hard into one of his hobbies — roasting coffee. From there, he recalled, making chocolate seemed a natural progression.
On his “About the Company” page, Orlando details how similar hobbies — coffee roasting, restoring antique espresso machines, making cheese and baking — led him to chocolate.
“The more I got into the chocolate-making hobby, the more distant my interest in unknown samples became,” he wrote, referring to his prior career in the sciences.
As he shifted career gears, there was a “two-year overlap” when he worked both as a chemist and a burgeoning chocolatier, Orlando, a San Jose native, told me.
Thirteen years have passed since his first chocolate factory on De la Vina Street, where he shared a commercial kitchen, followed by a site in the Funk Zone, to 24 Blackbirds’ current location at 428 E. Haley St.
“I’ve been here for five years, and it’s bigger and better” at 3,000 square feet, affording the company ample space both for production and a retail storefront fit for a chocolate artisan, one that encompasses the “bean to bar” industry, he said.
Orlando has built 24 Blackbirds by importing chocolate from the cacao beans’ primary global sources — Hawaii, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Tanzania, Madagascar, Bolivia, South Africa and Thailand. He buys from both single farms and co-ops in these Southern Hemisphere nations, and from farms in Hawaii.
“Cacao beans need a tropical climate; the only place in the United States suited for the plants is Hawaii,” he said.
That said, when Orlando relocated 24 Blackbirds to its current location, he turned a back room into a climate-controlled space and is growing cacao trees and vanilla bean vines. After the “starts” are of a sufficient size, they get relocated to his 20,000-square-foot Goleta greenhouse.
While Orlando’s primary focus are his dark chocolate bars crafted from a single farm, consumers often favor 24 Blackbirds’ case display of chocolate caramel confections as well as the hot chocolate drinks, he noted.
The chocolatier culled his business’ name from the nursery rhyme “Four and 20 Blackbirds.” (“Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye; four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.”) Customers either have already made the connection or (like me) inquire about the name, he said.
Orlando says he has a knack for repairing used machines, and the facility showcases his talent. The business is stocked with restored or “from scratch” equipment, all of it functional, from the repurposed wood shelving to the production line.
“Everything you see, I built,” he said.
His approach, Orlando said, is to explore the various avenues of artisan chocolate: growing, crafting, branding and retail. For the past four years, he’s researched chocolate fermentation — the process by which aromas, bold flavors and rich colors are created.
His is the only craft chocolate production facility in Santa Barbara County, Orlando said; the “next closest would be in Los Angeles.” The business’ retail hours are from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and guided tours are available and can be booked online by clicking here.
On the island of Kauai, siblings Will and Emily Lydgate, fifth-generation farmers, oversee a chocolate tree orchard on the family’s 46-acre farm. Tours highlight “Branch to Bar,” or all the details — growing of the trees, how fresh chocolate fruit tastes, harvesting, fermentation and the drying of the beans in the ample sunshine.
In 2002, “we planted 80 cacao trees. In 2008, we had our first harvest and made our first bars shortly afterward,” Will Lydgate said.
In 2016, he took over the business from his father and planted even more trees. The next year, Lydgate Farms earned a spot among the Top 50 craft chocolatiers in the world in a contest with 223 samples from 60 countries, he said.
The business of craft chocolate is following those of hand-roasted coffees, small-batch wines and microbreweries, Lydgate noted.
“One palate at a time” is his goal, he said with a laugh. “I want to teach our guests to the farm about specialty chocolates,” and offers side-by-side tastings to compare his product with the special dark of a certain bulk chocolate producer.
No chocolate for “bulk” production is grown in Hawaii, only that destined for specialty craft chocolate, he said.
Lydgate pairs his chocolates with ports or full-bodied red wines, such as the styles of Bordeaux (cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc), those that have more tannins to withstand the sweetness of the chocolate.
He suggests first sipping the wine and then nibbling the chocolate: “Try one at a time, because since chocolate is fat based, it needs to warm up in your mouth first.”
Lydgate said he is excited about the future of craft chocolate in the United States: “In Hawaii, everyone wants to support cacao farmers.”
He and his sister employ 12 people, half of whom work the farm and half who work the back and front of Lydgate Farms’ retail business.
— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.