Not all chocolate is created equal. Most of the chocolate we've grown up with and experience daily can't even be considered chocolate at all, with its list of unnecessary ingredients obscuring the peculiar and nourishing bean at its core. These sugary snacks set off a generic "yummy" reaction in our brains that we fail to question or explore.

That immediate "yummy" is what distorts chocolate from food into candy. We have to learn to be slow, coax out the nuances, bring back the wooing, and appreciate chocolate for what it is: an exotic food grown in jungles around the world. Nix the additives and poison and bring back one of the most nutritive foods on the planet!

I'm on a mission to travel and learn about chocolate making from bean to bar so I can translate my education into some amazing flavor experiences, and in doing so give people tastes that shake them, and stories to understand.

Battle the yummy. Expand your vocabulary. Chocolate is food, not candy.

Check out my Instagram and follow my adventures in chocolate mongering!