Mission Chocolate Fazenda Vale Potumuju Dark Chocolate Bar

The Mission Chocolate Fazenda Vale Potumuju 70% Dark Chocolate Bar is a chocolatey, earthy bar with flavor notes of honey and juicy, tropical fruit.

Mission Chocolate bars are a rare find in the United States. I am so proud to welcome a few of Arcelia’s gorgeous, inspiring and luscious creations to the Barometer collection. For the love of chocolate, please take this opportunity to savor one (or more!) of these precious gems!

Arcelia Gallardo is based in São Paulo, Brazil. She grew up in California, and thanks to her Mexican heritage, savoring authentic drinking chocolate was a regular household ritual. Arcelia was quite shocked to discover the candy that her peers referred to as “chocolate” since her palate was unaccustomed to overtly sweet and simplistic flavors. She ate this candy, but to her heart, mind and palate, it bore no resemblance to chocolate.

 After graduating from college, Arcelia became fascinated by the history of chocolate and earned her living teaching people about cacao. Before dedicating her life to chocolate, Arcelia traveled through Europe for five months to learn about desserts, pastries and chocolate. That adventure sealed the deal. After savoring and studying the best-loved desserts of 16 countries (and magically losing weight in the process), Arcelia moved to Berkeley, California and became the chocolatier of her very own shop.

The shop was successful and she enjoyed her work, but she became ever more curious about crafting chocolate bars directly from the bean rather than melting down chocolate to create bonbons. She visited her neighbors at nearby (and world renowned) Dandelion Chocolate and requested an internship! It was a surprising move for someone as well-established as Arcelia, and even the fine folks at Dandelion were puzzled by her desire to study bean-to-bar chocolate making, but they graciously invited her in and trained her...so well, in fact, that they wanted her to stay on and continue making chocolate for them.

Arcelia had other plans, though. She and her husband were expecting to move to Brazil and she knew she would start her own bean-to-bar chocolate company there. The name she decided upon was “Mission” as an homage to her former San Franciscan district where she lived and learned at Dandelion to transform beans into magical bars of deliciousness.

Arcelia is highly regarded in the craft chocolate world. Besides being an incredibly gifted bean-to-bar chocolate maker, she created and now presides over the Bean to Bar Association of Brazil. She is also a Co-Chair of the Good Food Awards for chocolate in San Francisco, California, and is a judge for the Northwest Chocolate Festival Awards in Seattle. 

Arcelia’s “Mission” involves incorporating native fruits and nuts from six distinct Brazilian biomes into her gorgeous chocolate (made exclusively from the beans of her adopted homeland), and she takes great pride in teaching the art and craft of chocolate making to aspiring makers both in Brazil and beyond. In fact, Arcelia has taught indigenous women all over Latin America how to craft chocolate utilizing their local ingredients, with neither electricity nor sophisticated equipment.

Arcelia is an extraordinary figure in the craft chocolate movement, and it is an honor to offer you her artisanal bars, borne out of the noble mission to support

farmers and shine a spotlight on Brazilian ingredients. Please enjoy!

• Ingredients: Cacao Beans, Organic Sugar, Cocoa Butter
• Net Weight: 60 g. / 2.1 oz.
• Country of Origin: Brazil