Serious Chocolate

Maya Gold is one of the best chocolate bars in existence. Not just for its darkness, which is excellent, or its spices, which are thrilling, but for its social and economic effects, which are nearly revolutionary. [via]

It's like a mini-lesson in global economics, commodities, agricultural industrialization, and developmentalism.

Wouldn't it be far easier to clear the forest, plant citrus, blast any diseases with pesticides and pump up the fruit with fertilisers? 'We've all seen what happens across the border in Guatemala,' says Peck. 'They cut everything, but we still have our trees, we have clean creeks, we have all the birds and animals with us for our grandchildren to see. The only way is to practise the system of our ancestors.'