‘We’re looking for a bright future.’ State College business shifts focus from coffee to chocolate

If Sombra Buena sounds familiar, it’s because Jennifer Chesworth’s business originally served Centre County staples like Webster’s Bookstore Cafe with coffee — but now, the Sombra Buena focus is all on chocolate, with the reimagined, relaunched brand getting its new footing over a tumultuous last two years.

Chesworth said that when she and her contacts in Honduras were talking about working together again, this time with the new chocolate focus, they had no idea what challenges the future would bring.

“We had no idea that a global pandemic would strike. We had no idea that two hurricanes were to hit the farmers (in Honduras) while we were negotiating import and how to do it,” she said. “So this is a pandemic startup, but it’s been really fulfilling and satisfying. It’s been slow-going and small-scale, but I really enjoy it — and we’re looking for a bright future, we hope. We’re still making plans and growing.”

The Sombra Buena business model is two-fold. On one hand, Sombra Buena produces handcrafted, bean-to-bar, certified organic chocolate. On the other, it offers direct trade import services, facilitating the importation of certified organic, fair trade-registered cacao from Honduras, as well as specialty coffee. While Chesworth works with a team on the ground in Honduras, in State College it’s just her and a silent partner, with Chesworth making her chocolate bars by hand on a small scale.

“I buy organic raw beans by the sack,” Chesworth said of the process. “You roast them, you remove the hulls and you grind the beans, and then you have what’s called cocoa liquor — and the word ‘liquor’ meaning fluid, not alcohol, so it’s kind of a paste. You put that in what’s called a melanger or a concher — it’s a chocolate refining machine — with cocoa butter and sugar and vanilla or other ingredients that you’re using to make whatever kind of chocolate you’re making, at the proportions you want.”

After 24 hours in the refining machine, the chocolate is ready to temper, which Chesworth calls a very precise, delicate process, but “once you’re done, it’s worth it.”

Currently, Chesworth says she’s careful to work at a sustainable rate, until the business is able to expand to take more chocolate orders. Now, customers can find Sombra Buena’s organic chocolate at Webster’s Bookstore Cafe and via Centre Markets, as well used in menu items at Allen Street Grill. Each bar of chocolate is hand-wrapped and the wrappers use a certified-organic, all-natural, food-grade adhesive that Chesworth makes with acacia powder and vegetable glycerin. Popular options include the 75% cacao dark chocolate bar, as well as the espresso dark chocolate bar.

Chesworth is careful to identify herself as a chocolate maker versus a chocolatier, describing her bars as “really very straightforward chocolate,” even though her plans for new products seem a little more creative and tantalizing than just your average chocolate bar.

“I’m doing a salted pecan milk chocolate,” she said. “I’m going to do an almond rose dark chocolate. I’m going to do a turmeric and peppercorn dark chocolate ... I’m (also) going to start working with stevia.”

But even the straight Sombra Buena dark chocolate bars are significantly different from what one might find on their local grocery store shelf.

As Chesworth says, “When I first started making chocolate, I was astounded at what freshly-made chocolate tastes like. It’s very different. It’s been made within a week or a few days of getting it. A micro-batch is not going to sit there the way a bar that’s been trucked around sits on a shelf. ... Something that was made yesterday, when you taste it today, it’s an amazing difference. Also, I don’t use any palm oil. A lot of the mainstream chocolate has palm oil and emulsifiers in it. I’m not using palm oil. It’s pure cocoa butter for me, and that makes a big difference as well.”

As Sombra Buena continues to grow amid pandemic-related challenges, such as supply chain issues, and even natural disasters in Honduras, Chesworth notes the focus of her drive has been the same these past two years, as it was when she first started Sombra Buena as a coffee company.

“Both coffee and chocolate are forest plants, so when you work with the growers, you’re working with people of the forest, and that’s really, for me, the passion of it,” she said. “(Sombra Buena’s) fundamental value that has kept me going and has brought the people that are involved in Honduras into it, is forest protection. We love the rainforests and we want to see them thrive. ... We have an opportunity of making a difference there, even a small difference and that’s very important.”

Learn more about Sombra Buena at sombrabuena.net.