Tandy Peterson of Embers Chocolate is always game for talking about her bean-to-bar chocolate, from the harvesting process to the finished product. Peterson, who previously worked at Binkley’s in Cave Creek and Mowry & Cotton at The Phoenician Resort, started making chocolate in early 2021. Four years later, she’s garnered several prestigious national and international awards for her chocolates, including a Gold Medal for her Eloté White Chocolate Bar at the 2024 International Chocolate Awards. In April, she’s expanding into a retail space with café vibes in North Phoenix where you’ll be able to stock up on her tasty treats. Get a sneak peek at the fourth annual Dish Fest on Sunday, March 9. emberschocolate.com
What will you be sampling at this year’s Dish Fest?
We’re going to sample bars again because the educational side of bean-to-bar chocolate is really interesting and we’ll talk about different origins. I’ll be sampling a Bolivia 80 percent, which is a wild harvested bean; one from Dominican Republic; two from Peru that have different flavor profiles; and our award-winning Eloté White Chocolate to show the blank slate of what you can do with chocolate.
Do people gravitate toward dark or milk chocolate?
It just depends on the crowd. I would say that the majority of Americans are milk chocolate eaters, probably about 80 percent. But I have found that a lot of my customers are dark chocolate consumers. They’re a little bit more sugar conscious and they care about tasting the actual chocolate.
How do you educate your customers about the different kinds of chocolate?
My dark chocolates are really focused on the region they come from and I like to talk through the different regions. You can try them side by side. My Philippines chocolate has a lot of smoky notes to it, whereas, the Vietnamese chocolate reminds me of cinnamon hot cocoa, and my Bolivia chocolate is like cherry pie. Chocolate’s a lot like wine or coffee, and depending on where it comes from, it has a completely different flavor profile. My customers are really interested in the differences between the dark chocolates.
What do you enjoy about doing pop-ups like Dish Fest?
I enjoy going to these festivals because I reach a different community that I can educate and talk to about chocolate. To be able to validate – why am I paying $10 or $12 for a chocolate bar? People don’t understand why it costs that much to make a bar when they see a $2 Hershey Bar for equivalent size. A Hershey bar might be 11 percent chocolate, which is the legal requirement to be considered chocolate. There are so many other ingredients in Hershey bars that just aren’t chocolate, like oils and lecithin and wax.
