Let’s Give Taza a Hand, Simply by Eating Chocolate

This morning I received an email from one of our very favorite Greenies, Taza Chocolate. Although the area I'm in has felt more like Palm Springs lately than New England in the past month, last weekend we had an inordinate amount of rainfall in a very short period of time.

The flash downpours caused, you guessed it, lots of flash flooding. It turns out that Taza Chocolate was one of the many businesses effected by this strong batch of storms. And in their brand new facility that hadn’t even yet opened.

The following is the email and photos sent to me and many others who might be able to help out just by buying some chocolate or merchandise. I’m calling on the GLR community to give a hand if you can, let’s keep Taza going strong as they literally rebuild. Oh and by the way, I love their chocolate so if you do buy some and don’t like it, shoot me an email and I’ll send you my address :-)

"Taza Floods - Please Support Us As We Recover

Today, Taza is reaching out to our wonderful, loyal fans and asking for support. If you live in the Boston area, you saw how much water dropped suddenly from the sky last Saturday afternoon. Traffic ground to a halt as streets flooded out just minutes after the rain began.

Around 3pm, Taza's Director of Manufacturing (i.e. Head Chocolate Making Guy), Mike Schechter, thought maybe he'd pop by our newly renovated, first floor chocolate factory for a quick look, just to be safe. He arrived to find Windsor St. more river than roadway. And once inside, he found water pouring unchecked into the factory via a breach in our building's front exterior wall, and bubbling up from the drains in the floor. The new chocolate production facility, where we'd turned out our first batch of Mexicanos just last week, was already sitting in an unwelcome lake several inches deep, and the water was still coming. He grabbed his phone and started dialing, letting any Taza employee he could reach know that it might be a good idea for them to come by the factory, pronto.

Now, 72 hours later, we're taking stock. A dedicated, non-stop weekend bail-out, mop-up, and salvage effort by many of our amazing Taza staffers, on their own time, has cleared the way for recovery and rebuilding to start. We've hacked out the bottom 16 inches of drywall on every wall in our entire facility, carted ruined office cubicles to the dumpsters, and relocated our laptops to apartments and cafes until we have a functional workspace. Our chocolate production capacity will be shut down for at least a week, and cash flow will be a big challenge as we find a way to finance the repair of the facility we just made a major investment in upgrading. The silver lining? Our stockpile of bars, Mexicanos, and other Taza goodies is still stored on the second floor of our building, and remains safe, dry, and delicious.

Taza has always been a scrappy crew of chocolate fanatics, and we're determined to get back to the important business of making excellent chocolate as soon as possible. You have all shown us terrific support and love over our first 3 ½ years in business, and we ask for your support now - if you can, buy some Taza Chocolate (we also think you'd look great in a Taza t-shirt). Shop our online store, come out and see us at the farmers' markets, or find us at your local retailer. With great customers like you, we're going to keep on making the Taza Chocolate you love, come hell or high water.


Watch video from Channel 5 about Taza and the Somerville flash floods here.”

You Had Me at Chocolate, Taza Chocolate

Once in a while along comes a product that is so awesome I can not wait to share everything about it and when my Taza Chocolate showed up a few days ago I knew this would be one of those times the moment the stone ground cacao hit my tongue.

Taza is a local company to me, based out of Somerville, Massachusetts, and not too long ago I started noticing their round chocolate discs at the cash wrap of a few of my favorite locations. When my friend and I saw them at the Farmer’s Market shortly after that I knew there must be something to them so I picked up a package of their Nibs to see what the fuss was about.

I used the Nibs in a lemon pie recipe and they were just the right thing to give it some balance. I wanted more. As a self proclaimed chocoholic and a Greenie I am always looking for the perfect pairing so when I find out how wonderful a company is in addition to their chocolate, I sit up and take notice.

Using recycled winnower and roaster, shipping boxes that can be recycled and traditional stone grinding methods is just the beginning of what makes Taza Chocolate cool. Their chocolate bars come in the shape of a disc and a fairly compensated human is involved in every step of the process from the picking of the cacao beans to the packaging of the bar.

Oh yeah, did I mention most of their chocolate is Vegan approved and all of their product is certified 100% organic? Not to mention that founders Alex Whitmore, Larry Slotnick and Kathleen Fulton spent a good number of hours simply sourcing their first beans. They were only interested in purchasing from a sustainable farm where fair treatment practices were standard. Right on!

The company is dedicated to the environment from recycling efforts to direct trade, a reduced carbon footprint in manufacture to energy saving practices in the factory. In addition to these solid efforts Taza Chocolate also will deliver their product to patrons in Somerville and Cambridge by bicycle and they allow for local direct pick up at the factory.

As if all of this wasn’t enough they are currently working with a few Green initiatives locally to do their part to keep the community beautiful! This includes GoGreen Somerville and through this partnership they have begun working toward a zero waste facility via composting, recycling and donation efforts.

I can not find a single thing about this company that is not amazing! Because of this I feel it is my duty to bestow the long strived for, yet infrequently achieved Five Leaf Rating!

Taza Chocolate you are going in my cupboard, tummy and on top of everyone’s gift from now on as a little something extra. Thanks for sharing your love. Here is some right back!
♥love♥