Dark chocolate has a melting point just below that of your tongue, between 86 to 90 degrees. When it sits inside your mouth, at an average of 98.6 degrees, it can’t help but to melt –– releasing a world of flavor in its wake. 

The flavor of a chocolate bar is based on hundreds of factors, from variety of cacao bean, climate, and soil to degree of fermentation, level of roast and the recipe. A long journey, and in this case, lineage, that shapes the characteristics of each morsel of chocolate, ground, sweetened, and then thoughtfully packaged, ready for consumption.

And yet the trail of trees, laborers, and cacao beans leading up to the euphoric experience of chocolate, with corporate giants like Hershey’s historically leading the way, has been largely in the dark. Which is why the fifth generation of Kahkow, an over 100-year-old cacao planting and producing company, with a one-month-old flagship factory in New York is here, stewarded by Nadia Rizek.