Chocolate Festival expands cacao education

The Kansas Chocolate Festival is expanding the educational component of its annual event for its third year.

Festival organizers have coordinated four speakers to discuss heirloom cacao, artisan chocolate that is more obscure than the mass-marketed Hershey and Mars variety.

One of those is Nick Xidis, of Topeka, giving a "Bean-to-Bar Demonstration" about how cacao is used to make chocolate.

The festival, which is free to attend, runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday along S. Kansas Avenue in downtown Topeka.

Xidis said his interest in artisan chocolate began about two years ago. Since then, incorporating it into the festival has been a priority for him.

“As we’ve gotten more into it, we’ve learned a lot more about the plant and the challenges economically with keeping that viable,” Xidis said. “So we hope people will enjoy the chocolate and experience that, but we hope that with the FCIA (Fine Chocolate Industry Association), people will get a better sense of what this stuff is, where it comes from and why buying the right types of products from the right suppliers is so important.”

Xidis said heirloom cacao is the cacao fruit found growing wild in its native regions, mostly in western Africa. It is used to make chocolate, and when found organically is in much smaller quantities than the industrial orchards that make up mass markets.

Karen Bryant, senior adviser of the Fine Chocolate Industry Association, compares heirloom cacao to wine in that it has many different flavors because of the nutrients in the ground and the climate where the cacao is grown.

Bryant will host a “Fine Chocolate Challenge" at the festival, encouraging guests to taste some artisan flavors.

“They’ll get to taste a piece of mass-market chocolate and a piece of fine chocolate, and we’ll see who can taste the difference and what they perceive the difference to be,” she said.

The FCIA has spoken at multiple chocolate-related events across the country, Bryant said, hoping to educate people about heirloom cacao — where it is grown and how to responsibly sustain the small market found only in a few places worldwide.

“I don’t think people are coming to the festival to have a heavy discussion, but we do want to give them this experience, and hopefully they’ll be open to fine chocolate,” Bryant said. “It does cost more than the mass-market chocolate, but it’s a wholly other experience.”

Other speakers include Francisco Moreno, of Pacari Chocolate, a company that produces organic chocolate from Ecuador, presenting "Food from the Gods: How Organic Chocolate is Grown, Processed and Made," and Bill Copeland, of Glacier Confection, an heirloom cacao preservation initiative, who will discuss "The Future of Chocolate: Saving Fine Flavor Cacao."

For more information about the festival, visit bit.ly/KansasChocolateFest18.

EDUCATION SPEAKERS

10 a.m.: "Food from the Gods: How Organic Chocolate is Grown, Processed and Made," presented by Francisco Moreno, of Pacari Chocolate

11 a.m.: "The Future of Chocolate: Saving Fine Flavor Cacao," presented by Bill Copeland of Glacier Confection, Heirloom Cacao Preservation Initiative

noon: "Take the Fine Chocolate Challenge," presented by Karen Bryant, of the Fine Chocolate Industry Association

1 p.m.: "Bean-to-Bar Demonstration," presented by Nick Xidis, of Hazel Hill Chocolate