Danta

Founded: 2008
Headquarters: Guatemala City, Guatemala
Style: retro-American
Characteristics: spare; places the balance of a chocolate’s flavor on the genetic makeup of its cacáo
Ferment: consults with local growers to establish best-practices most suitable for the pulp & seeds
Roast: light (just barely enough to facilitate blowing the husks off, figuratively speaking, after winnowing of course)
Conche: gentle (virtually minimal coating of particles impacting textural integrity)
Impact: Arisen from the ruins, literally & figuratively, of a critically important cacáo-culture in perhaps all of chocolate lore — Mayan Guatemala. Studious & intersticial – the space between – projecting Euro market preference & pricing juxtaposed with a nod to indigenous cacáo groves & history in a country whose current economy can barely afford either. As such, Carlos Eichenberger & his enterprise Danta Chocolate stand in the vanguard of a movement: emblematic of a quasi-vintner model vertically integrating every step in the production chain in one spot, thereby keeping value-added profits close to home, in the pockets of people whose work is most responsible for bringing it to fruition. This goes some distance in helping revive those cacáo trees, some perhaps heirloom relics, that are largely abandoned or in decline, in an area of deeply rooted & rather sacred chocolate ground.This, then, locavore chocolate shipped worldwide, stretching the concept of localization in order to inter-relate with the rest of humanity for what might be called ‘globolate’ (global-chocolate) that could just as easily fit into the exclusive midways of commerce on 5th Avenue or Champs Elysée.

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