{"id":2667,"date":"2012-06-12T11:26:47","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T18:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/?p=2667"},"modified":"2022-10-20T18:01:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T01:01:40","slug":"new-tree-on-the-block","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/local-chocolate\/san-francisco-chocolate\/new-tree-on-the-block\/","title":{"rendered":"New Tree on the block"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"New<\/a>
NewTree\u2019s cozy corner store in downtown SF at 1 Ecker Place, across the alley from Yang Sing\u2019s Stevenson St. location.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cozy corner for chocolate opens in SF<\/h2>\n

[UPDATE 2020: This location has closed. Another NewTree caf\u00e9 is located at 311 California St., SF. UPDATE 2021: The California St. location is closed.]<\/p>\n

Is sustainability important to you? If so, you\u2019ll want to check out NewTree\u2019s flagship caf\u00e9 in downtown San Francisco. And if sustainability isn\u2019t on your radar yet, you\u2019ll still want to go to enjoy their tasty food, attractive space and healthy take on Belgian chocolate.<\/p>\n

NewTree is a Belgian chocolate maker focused on sustainability that opened a U.S. office in Marin County in 2010. While their chocolate bars can be found from coast to coast in places like Whole Foods, this is their first company-owned caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>
You can sample bars before you buy at the caf\u00e9.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Consciousness-resting environment<\/h2>\n

In addition to carrying their full line of bars (and providing samples!), the caf\u00e9 is also where the company\u2019s commitment to sustainability is on public display.<\/p>\n

According to Udaiyan Jatar (UJ), NewTree\u2019s sustainability and marketing consultant, not only is all the food served at the caf\u00e9 locally sourced and organic, but \u201ceverything in the caf\u00e9 is sustainably focused. There\u2019s recycled paper on the ceiling, recycled pebbles in the floor, recycled crushed glass in the countertop, even Brazilian air plants that just require an occasional misting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is NewTree\u2019s first caf\u00e9. We wanted to create a hub for sustainably minded people,\u201d said UJ. \u201cYou can walk in and feel \u2018there\u2019s no compromise in what I\u2019m doing. It\u2019s healthy for me\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

NewTree\u2019s approach to sustainability is very holistic. As you might expect with a stated focus on sustainability, their chocolate is all organic and fair trade, their to-go containers are compostable, and their packaging is printed with vegetable inks on recycled paper.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s like Sustainability 101, and NewTree is on a PhD track. Like other concerned chocolatiers, they are careful where they get their cacao from. They buy their cacao from 4 cooperatives in the Dominican Republic and Peru, because for Beno\u00eet de Bruyn, company founder and head visionary, \u201cMost important to me was the slavery issue in sourcing cacao<\/a>. I want to shake the hand of my producers. In the Dominican Republic and Peru, I can meet the people; they are like wine growers here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to developing strong relationships with their producers, they ship their cacao by boat instead of air. Plus for every bar they sell, they donate 1 euro cent to an indigenous community in the Amazon<\/a> that is working to preserve the environment and traditional knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"Benoit<\/a>
Beno\u00eet de Bruyn, NewTree\u2019s CEO & head chocolatier, wearing the company slogan across his heart.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to Beno\u00eet, \u201cThe company is carbon neutral. We have no impact on the planet, because we compensate for the CO2<\/sub> impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sustainable sustenance<\/h2>\n

In addition to not impacting the planet, they aim to have only a positive impact on consumers. They removed all trans fats from their chocolates and reduced the sugar 20-35% without adding artificial sweeteners. Instead, Beno\u00eet said, \u201cWe added fiber, like agave fiber, and we put in plant extracts so you get the plant benefits from eating our chocolate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The added fiber means their bars have 5 times as much fiber as plain chocolate bars, and the plant extracts have been part of the chocolate bars since the company\u2019s beginning in Belgium in 2001: \u201cLavender was the first [plant extract] bar I ever created,\u201d explained Beno\u00eet, \u201cBecause I was in love with a small lavender producer in Provence, France. They were creating natural extracts by pressure only. I got so excited, I had to put lavender extract in chocolate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interest in nutrition is another layer of their dedication to sustainability and played into the naming of the company (NewTree\/nutrition). They want to sustain the life of the planet, but also the lives of us who live here now.<\/p>\n

So portion sizes at the caf\u00e9 are reasonable \u2014 no SuperSizeMe selections here. Sandwiches are on small rolls, hot chocolate is in small cups. But like good chocolate, the fresh organic food satisfies. You don\u2019t need more.<\/p>\n

But how\u2019s it taste?<\/h2>\n

Some of us CBTB chocolateers have been sampling the goods, and we all agree: It\u2019s very tasty. Lunch items, like the Belgian salad (shredded Brussels sprouts, Romaine lettuce, radish, feta cheese, cranberries and nuts dressed with pomegranate chocolate vinaigrette dressing) or the Brie and chocolate sandwich on a raisin roll, are a nice change of pace from more typical lunch fare. And the hot chocolate (get there early \u2014 it sells out!) is chocolately and thick like European hot chocolate. Desserts, whether they are dense dark chocolate like the Mi-Cuit (molten chocolate cake) or creamy milk chocolate like the lavender mousse, are winners too and not overly sweet.<\/p>\n

And the bars? We haven\u2019t made it through the whole range (there are around 15 flavors, some milk, some dark), but what we\u2019ve tried have been uniformly good. Lime granola milk chocolate is a nice variation on the more common orange chocolate, and the granola adds an oat-y\u00a0 texture. The cinnamon milk chocolate has a taste that\u2019s reminiscent of chai tea and a small-grit texture, which maybe comes from the cinnamon(?) and is not an unpleasant addition. The quinoa flax bar has a nice balance between the dark chocolate and the crunchy quinoa, a grown-up Nestl\u00e9 Crunch. And the Speculoos is a dark chocolate bar full of bits of a traditional European spice cookie. It\u2019s not as crunchy as the quinoa flax bar, and the cookie adds a caramelized taste to the chocolate. Other flavors I look forward to tasting are Thyme, Ginger and Superfruit (cranberries, pomegranate and papaya).<\/p>\n

We like the chocolate because of the lower sugar profile and high cacao content, even in the milk chocolate: \u201cOur dark bars are 66-67% cacao,\u201d said Beno\u00eet, \u201cAnd our milk is a strong milk chocolate with close to 50% cacao. We blend three kinds of beans \u2014 like in wine making, we are mixing to get a certain taste profile.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the nice things about the caf\u00e9 is that they carry the full line of NewTree products, some of which are new since May and some created expressly for the U.S. market. It\u2019s conveniently located a couple of blocks from the Montgomery BART station, so it will be easy to check out what\u2019s new and stock up whenever you\u2019re downtown.<\/p>\n

Building a better spread<\/h2>\n

One of their unique products is their chocolate spread (3 flavors: dark, orange & cherry). \u201cIn Europe, chocolate spreads are 50% oil. This is a disaster for your health,\u201d said Beno\u00eet. \u201cI wanted a mix of chocolate and milk, which was impossible because water in chocolate ruins it. So I developed a way to make an emulsion of chocolate and water. Our chocolate spread has no added oil. And what I really like is that in addition to using it as a spread, you can make hot chocolate with it, use it on pancakes and ice cream. Or melt it and dip fruit in it like fondue.\u201d<\/p>\n

As seems to be the case with most chocolatiers we meet, Beno\u00eet is one part artist, one part mad scientist. \u201cBefore, I was a bio-mechanical engineer. So I know the 700 components of this, but I don’t want to talk about them. It\u2019s exciting to me, but not to you. In our process, we physically force the chocolate and water to mix. No chemicals are involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, he is in talks with other chocolate manufacturers who are interested in using his process to make their spreads healthier too.<\/p>\n

NewTree seems to be a culmination of Benu\u00eet\u2019s diverse interests: science, food, sustainability, nutrition and nature. Starting from a childhood interest in birds and bats, he became an expert on Belgian bats (\u201cBats are very intelligent animals that use the highest technology to locate themselves\u201d). Adding an interest in science to his interest in nature got him into engineering. And interests in chocolate and social justice lead him to create the healthy, sustainable and tasty NewTree line.<\/p>\n

Lucky us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nutritious NewTree chocolates in a sustainable caf\u00e9 make trips to downtown SF pretty sweet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169,41,50],"tags":[307,567,210,318,44,308,306,45,309,412],"class_list":["post-2667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-san-francisco-chocolate","category-vitamin-ch","tag-belgian-chocolate","tag-benoit-de-bruyn","tag-cafe","tag-chocolate-cafe","tag-fair-trade","tag-green","tag-newtree","tag-organic","tag-sustainable","tag-whole-foods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35560,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions\/35560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}