Published March 6, 2018
Ecuador-based chocolate maker To’ak sources its cacao beans from just 322 trees of the 5,300-yearold Nacional species, which was thought to be extinct until 2009, when To’ak’s co-founders, Jerry Toth and Carl Schweizer, and harvest master, Servio Pachard, found a grove of the trees deep in the Piedra de Plata valley. Each vintage of the chocolate is aged in wood for at least two years and comprises a limited 100-bar run. Every bar comes in a Spanish elm box with wooden tasting utensils. Newly released, the 2015 bars aged in single-malt Islay casks (shown) are $355 each, while the 2014 cognac-barrel edition is $385. toakchocolate.com. —Ari Bendersky
To’ak uses the oldest and rarest cacao variety on earth to make extremely limited editions of single-origin Ecuadorian dark chocolate. It’s flagship edition was aged for three years in a French Oak Cognac Cask and retails for $365 per bar, considered the most expensive chocolate in the world. Each bar is packaged in a hand-crafted Spanish Elm wood box with the individual bar number engraved on the back. It includes a 116-page booklet and specially designed tasting utensils that are used to explore the signature aroma of heirloom Ecuadorian cacao. To’ak is also working on-the-ground in Ecuador to conserve history’s most prized variety of cacao before it goes extinct. To’ak has been featured in Forbes, L.A. Times, Robb Report, Fortune Magazine, TV channels such as BBC, CNBC, CNN, and FOX, and over a hundred other publications across six continents.
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