Our New Yasica Bar Received the Highest Dark Chocolate Score at the Northwest Chocolate Festival Awards

October 23, 2023

We had an incredible weekend at the Northwest Chocolate Festival! Thousands of craft chocolate lovers descended on the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue Washington to enjoy two days of tasting chocolate from some of the best craft chocolate makers in the world. There were also numerous informational presentations, including one by us. Monica was on the main stage along with our Nicaragua cacao farmer Giff Laube to talk about our latest Limited Release "Yasica" bar. We crafted this bar with an extremely rare ancient Nicaragua Criollo bean which Giff has been carefully propagating for over ten years, after finding the trees in the jungle and having the leaves tested by the USDA. This was a labor of love for Giff since this type of cacao is very susceptible to disease and isn't a prolific producer. But, the flavors are incredibly unique! The judges for the Northwest Chocolate Festival agreed and gave it the highest score of any bar in the Dark Chocolate category. Giff was only able to produce one sack of this cacao, so we were able to make only a small number of bars. We released some at the festival and will have the rest available in our online shop later this week. Join our mailing list to be the first to find out once they're up! If you'd like to purchase some Northwest Chocolate Festival Winners now we're happy to report that three of our other bars won awards as well! In the Flavored Bar category our Putnam Rye Whiskey, Sichuan Pepper and Cafe con Leche bars also won awards. They're all available now in our online shop. Monica and Giff at the 2023 Northwest Chocolate Festival, Goodnow Farms Chocolate