Fine & Raw Chocolates - Find. Eat. Drink.

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August 11, 2009

Fine & Raw is a chocolatier producing 100% organic, raw chocolates and ice-cream containing no dairy or sugar. After tasting the chocolate you won’t care that it’s organic and raw; it’s rich, complex, and you’ll want more.

Fine & Raw Chocolates

It’s simple, it’s creamy, it’s rich and it also happens to be non-dairy, eco-friendly, and fair trade. The artisanal gourmet chocolate company, Fine and Raw Chocolate, was born in Brooklyn, but the owner/chocolate maker, Daniel Sklaar, hails from South Africa. Daniel credits his entry into the chocolate world to Cocoa Puffs cereal, which he ate each morning as a little kid. From there he graduated to chocolate bars, truffles and later, bon bons. And while Daniel’s taste buds have come a long way since his Cocoa Puffs days, he still eats chocolate for breakfast.

Fine and Raw Chocolate is 100% organic, sweetened by agave instead of sugar, contains no dairy and is flavored with fine ingredients like coconut oil and Himalayan sea salt. And it’s raw.

What makes it raw? Conventional chocolate is usually made from cocoa beans that have been roasted at high temperatures before being processed, but Sklaar’s cocoa never reaches any temperature above 118 degrees, which is the temperature cutoff for raw food.

Why raw? Scientific studies have shown that raw cacao is the number one food source of magnesium and antioxidants and has up to five times more antioxidants than regular dark chocolate. As a bonus, raw chocolate contains other natural chemicals like phenylethylamine (which scientists believe is released when you are in love or at the very least releases endorphins in the brain and produces a mild feeling of euphoria); tryptophan (the precursor to serotonin), theobromine and anandamine (the bliss chemical). No wonder Daniel chose a lingerie designer to design his logo.

Fine and Raw Chocolate is highly layered and the agave adds just the right counter-balance to keep the raw chocolate from being bitter. We tried the lucuma and vanilla, which Fine and Raw describes as: textured style bar with notes of bread pudding, toffee apple and burnt caramel. The Bonbons Bar, which uses chocolate from Ecuador, is Fine and Raw’s signature bar and Daniel says closest to his heart. He likes that the flavors are complex, yet accessible. He is also working on a new line, which will incorporate mesquite and Yakon, a coarse textured, robust perennial herbaceous plant with large leaves from the Andes.

Currently, the chocolates are sold in specialty stores like Dean & DeLuca, Marlow & Sons, and coffee bars like Grumpy’s and City Bakery.