By Jecca Berta
Ghana is the second largest cocoa-producing country in the world. Over the last few years, it has experienced decreased productivity due to climate change, black pod disease, and older trees. Leslie Agyare of Three Mountains Cocoa, whom we’re partnering with to source beans, is looking to change and protect Ghana’s cocoa industry. We sat down with Ron, our Cocoa Sourcing Manager, and Greg, our Chocolate “Sourcerer,” to learn more about Ghana’s cocoa history, why Three Mountains is challenging the status quo, and how we arrived at our new 70% Takyikrom, Ghana bar.
What’s the flavor profile of this new bar?
Ron: It’s definitely more chocolatey and in the sweet aromatic flavor family — brown spices like cinnamon, nutmeg with a hint of coconut. The flavor profile that people think of as “chocolatey” is what comes from Ghana. It used to be the largest cocoa producer in the world.
The community of Takyikrom, where the beans for this bar are grown, has a rich history of cacao farming. Tell us about that.
Ron: That community originally lived in the mountains of Kwahu. They wanted to start cacao farming, so back in the 1950s the founder traveled down to the valley and found this land that was very fertile. They moved their entire village from the mountains to where their community now is, and started farming cacao there. That’s how the village was founded. The community, Takyikrom, is named after the first chief, Nana Takyi, and is now the center of organic cocoa production in Ghana.
Given that Ghana is such a large cocoa producer, why hadn’t we worked with them before?
Ron: They’re not typically known for specialty cocoa.
Greg: That’s right. We want to showcase what can be done in Ghana. For a long time, we hadn’t worked with Ghanaian cocoa because we hadn’t found the right producer to work with. It’s a complex structure because there is a Cocoa Board in place, set by the Ghanaian government — that means we can’t have the same direct relationship we have with cocoa producers in all these other places we work with.
The logistical complexity is challenging as well. Everyone ferments their own cocoa. This is rare because the quality can be mixed. The only other origin we work with where that’s the case is Kpalimé, Togo. In Ghana, they’re training the cacao farmers to do better ferments. One of the very exciting things Three Mountains Cocoa is doing is community micro-lots. The cocoa comes from a very small set of people, so you get more distinct flavors.
Three Mountains Cocoa is focused on bringing sustainability and transparency to Ghanaian cocoa. How did our relationship with them get started?
Greg: I met Leslie, the head of Three Mountains, in 2023, when I did a Cocoa Masterclass in the Dominican Republic. He’s one of the most charismatic humans you’ll ever meet. He’s British, but his family is from Ghana. He brought samples of beans from different communities in Ghana, and showed the variation of flavor that came from his beans. It was very much an eye opener. We’d tried Ghanaian samples before and were underwhelmed. Other craft makers had used Ghanaian cocoa, and it’s not that it was bad, but we didn’t feel like it was punchy enough. His [beans] were the first that we tried and thought, “Woah, this is really interesting.”
How does Three Mountains work with cacao farmers? What’s their model?
Greg: Three Mountains works with eight different communities, and all are in the same geographic area. Takyikrom is one of those communities. Even cocoa in the same geographic area, grown very close together, ends up having its own flavor.
Ron: We ended up sampling some from each community. Three Mountains also does a standard blend, where they take cocoa from several communities and do one flavor blend. What appealed to us about Takyikrom is it had the best flavor to fit our assortment. We’re working exclusively with that community to source their beans via Three Mountains.
So no one else is crafting chocolate from Takyikrom?
Ron: We have an exclusive agreement with Three Mountains that no other maker can use 100 percent Takyikrom beans in their chocolate. Three Mountains can use Takyikrom beans in their blends, which combine beans from several communities, but we are the only maker sourcing Takyikrom beans for single-origin bars.
We often say that Dandelion is about people first, then flavor, then consistency. That seems to be the case here.
Greg: Yes. This is a good model for specialty cocoa because one of the things you need is that connection, and Leslie’s been an outstanding bridge for us. First and foremost, we love how he’s working with these eight communities to do more than commodity cocoa. There’s a lot of pride in working with cocoa, and the farmers like working with Leslie. The community is really excited about taking part in this thing that people talk about all the time — the green economy. The fact that Leslie is plugging these farmers into these bigger networks is really awesome. Three Mountains is this conduit in working with people on both sides. We have a ton of respect for that.
Ron: Three Mountains has only been around for a few years. Leslie is very good at getting his name out there and connecting with others. He’s been here to our factory in San Francisco a few times as well.
Tell us more about Three Mountains’ focus on sustainability.
Greg: The price of cocoa has skyrocketed because of climate change, specifically in West Africa — the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Three Mountains is working with my other business, Terraton, to build a biochar facility near Takyikrom, to sequester carbon and turn it into a useful soil amendment. That means Takyikrom will be one of the most carbon-negative cocoa origins we’ve ever worked with. They have a very strong commitment to regenerative farming, to being climate-friendly cocoa. It’s really exciting to see this starting to happen. This project is fighting climate change, and it will also bring more money in for the community, as well as hopefully better yields from the farmers.
Wow, very cool. That topic deserves a blog post of its own (to be continued in Part II).
Greg: Definitely.
Ghana sets farmgate pricing for its cocoa. How do those price caps affect farmers there?
Greg: Everyone is paid the same price for their beans. The Cocoa Board in Ghana dictates the price of what all farmers get. Farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast are basically told: This is how you grow the seedlings, this is how you grow the trees, this is how you ferment, and therefore you have the best quality cocoa in the world. In fairness, Ghanaian cocoa is impressively high quality for commodity cocoa. They do 100 percent testing for every single bag that goes out of Ghana. They do that with cut tests — literally cutting beans in half to inspect them; but there’s no flavor test.
Leslie’s working with the Ghanaian government. He’s trying to change things, to change the system, but he’s not trying to do it in an underhanded way. We’re going to be talking to the government about what we’re doing, so they see the success story, and hopefully do more of this. We want them to see how great it is.
Editor’s note: For more on commodity cocoa market volatility, take a look at last year’s blog post on soaring cocoa prices.
How are farmers incentivized to grow premium beans if there’s a set farmgate price across the board?
Greg: In Ghana, even if you have premium beans, you can’t get a quality premium, because that would imply all of the cocoa isn’t the highest quality. You can receive premiums for things like organic beans, but those premiums can’t be based on quality. So the way we’re working with them is that technically the farmers still get the basic price that everyone gets, but they get a premium on top of that, and additional money for the premium later.
That’s how the structure works — everyone gets the same price, but if you find a buyer like Dandelion who wants to pay you a premium for certain lots of cocoa, then you can get premiums for those. The challenge is tracking those all the way through, to make sure the money goes back to the farmers and communities. You have to figure out a way to get it through the government. If you do cash, it’s more complex than if you try to build something.
Ron: For example, a portion of our premium is going to build a well in the community of Takyikrom, which they asked for.
Greg: Some of the large companies are concerned that if they take premiums, the money won’t get back to the farmers. It’s easier for us as we’re working directly with Leslie, so we know what’s going on with both sides. Having this third party (Three Mountains) who’s in the community build the well is easier to negotiate than navigating inter-community politics. Leslie can do more of that work. He lives in London but is in Ghana all the time.
Is there anything different about this origin compared to others we’ve worked with?
Greg: The fact that the smallholder farmers are fermenting their own beans is a big deal. It’s a different process. In Ghana, all of the trees the farmers grow are made by the government from hand-pollinating trees to grow approximately the seeds they want to turn into seedlings. (The approximation is important. Closing gives you precision, and grafting gives you approximation.) Instead of growing seedlings and then grafting them to get a clone, they use combinations of Amelonado and Upper Amazon hybrids to get productive and disease-resistant trees.
How would you describe the taste of our 70% Takyikrom, Ghana bar?
Ron: The flavor is very chocolate-forward, as you’d expect with beans from Ghana, but it’s also quite complex, with notes of milky coffee, as well as some tropical fruit flavors, including coconut. The tasting notes we landed on were chocolate cake, café con leche, and coconut.
Was there anything that stood out in making this bar?
Ron: In the first couple rounds of testing, the two highest-scoring batches were a darker roast, at 250°F, then the second was 230°F. There was such a broad difference between roasting temperatures, but they both had flavors that people liked. In terms of the hedonic scale, we had a large variation.
Greg: The Three Mountains cocoa beans are so interesting because there’s a lot of different flavors you can draw out. Depending on how you work with them, you get very different flavors.
Ron: I think especially for some of the more delicately fruity chocolates — Kokoa Kamili, Tanzania or Maya Mountain, Belize — once you get into the higher roasts, you lose all of that complexity and it becomes something very one-note. To Greg’s point, with these Ghana beans, you can get a more pleasant variation at different temperatures.
How does West African cocoa stand out from other origins?
Greg: West African cocoa is the definition of cocoa for most people in the world. The Ivory Coast and Ghana constitute about 70 percent of cocoa in the world. The thing that’s interesting is we’re finally working with what has been the definition of chocolate for so long, but we found the version of that definition we wanted to work with.
Can’t wait to try the new bar. Thanks for chatting, Ron and Greg.
Reader — Part II of this blog post will look at how Three Mountains and Terraton are crafting carbon-negative cocoa. It’s really interesting and important work. More on that soon.
Wow! What a great read. Looking forward to trying this new bar.