Goodnow Farm

Goodnow Farms - Esmeraldas, Ecuador 70%

55 g Fine Dark Chocolate
Regular price $30.00 USD
Sale price $30.00 USD Regular price

Top Micro-Batch – Plain/Origin Dark Chocolate Bars 2025
International Chocolate Awards

Origin & Craftsmanship
This artisan bar is crafted from single-origin cacao beans grown on the Salazar family’s estate in Esmeraldas, a region in northern Ecuador. The Salazars oversee every stage—from varietal selection to fermentation and drying—to ensure exceptional bean quality. Goodnow Farms takes it further: beans are roasted in small batches, stone-ground in melanguers, conched for five days, and refined with cocoa butter pressed from the same estate beans. The result? A smooth, creamy bar with deeply expressive flavor.

Flavor Profile
This well-balanced dark chocolate is known for its very low acidity and vibrant berry jam notes—think deep raspberry or red grape—that carry into a long, satisfying finish with a mellow astringency. Reviewers also detect undertones of Cabernet grapes, lending a fruity, wine-like nuance. The texture is velvety and refined, showcasing the impact of freshly pressed cocoa butter.

Accolades & Awards
This bar has earned repeated recognition, including Silver medals from the Academy of Chocolate (2021–2023), Silver from the International Chocolate Awards (2020), and a prestigious Gold sofi Award in 2020 for specialty dark chocolate.

Tasting & Pairing Guide

Enjoy the Esmeraldas 70% bar slowly, allowing the rich berry jam flavors to bloom gently across your palate. Pair it with a fruity red wine like Pinot Noir to mirror the jammy grape notes, or sip it alongside hibiscus or other floral teas to highlight its fruit-forward character. A light, crisp cider complements its brightness, while espresso emphasizes its roasted depth. For food pairings, fresh berries or fruit tarts intensify its core flavors, and toasted almond biscotti provides a nutty counterpoint to its silky texture.

Summary

The Esmeraldas 70% Dark Chocolate is a polished expression of Ecuadorian cacao, crafted with meticulous care and celebrated worldwide. Its jammy fruit character, smooth texture, and award-winning pedigree make it a standout for chocolate lovers who value both terroir and craftsmanship.

Vegan, Gluten-Free, Soy Free

Like coffee beans and wine grapes, different cacao beans have different flavors. By using beans sourced from only one farm or region we’re able to highlight the distinct flavor characteristics of that particular bean. Discovering those flavors is one of the joys of making (and eating) single-origin craft chocolate!

To make excellent chocolate we need to start with excellent beans. We’ve traveled throughout Latin America searching for the most flavorful beans, and have direct relationships with the farmers who grow and harvest them. By dealing directly with farmers we’re able to ensure we always receive the very best beans, which in many cases are fermented and dried to our custom specifications. Our direct trade model also allows us to pay significantly more than commodity or Fair Trade prices, and ensure that farming practices are sustainable and labor practices are equitable.

All of our chocolate is made at our 225 year old farm in Sudbury, Massachusetts. We start with cacao beans and sugar, and perform every step of the chocolate making process in-house, including carefully hand wrapping each bar. We’re also one of the only chocolate makers to use our own freshly pressed, single origin cocoa butter in our chocolate. Doing this is time consuming and difficult, but the result is exceptionally smooth and intensely flavorful chocolate.

We believe that great craft chocolate is “true to the bean,” – that the flavors apparent in the bar reflect the flavors hidden in the bean. We invite you to explore our website to learn more about the many steps involved in truly realizing the full flavor potential of single-origin chocolate cacao, from personal sourcing to painstakingly roasting, pressing cocoa butter, conching and more. What you discover will change the way you think about chocolate!

Cacao Beans, Organic Sugar, Fresh Pressed Cocoa Butter

Keep in a cool, dry place, away from direct light and strong odors. Store at maximum
18 ° C in its original packaging

Our chocolate makers proudly refrain from using any artificial stabilizers or preservatives in their products, making their creations more temperature-sensitive compared to other premium chocolates.

To ensure the optimal taste experience, it's advisable to store our chocolates in a cool, dry place where the temperature hovers between 16°C and 18°C. Please refrain from refrigerating our chocolates, as this may cause sugar crystallization due to increased humidity, altering their texture and flavor.

On the contrary, if stored in excessively high temperatures, cocoa butter may separate and form a white film on the chocolate's surface. This loss of cocoa butter can lead to the chocolate drying out and, consequently, a potential alteration in flavor. Your mindful storage practices will help preserve the integrity of our delectable chocolates.

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