by RENEE PATRICK Cascade Business News Feature Writer
How do you like your chocolate?
Chocolate paired with beer, chocolate with cheese, chocolate for your health…but what about beer, cheese and medicinal herbs in your chocolate? The playful nature of Aaron Koch of Indaphoria Chocolatier has resulted in a line of chocolate bars which experiments with unique combinations of ingredients – producing delicious variations in his Bend based shop.
In naming the company Indahporia, Koch drew on his Indonesian roots: Indah means “beautiful” in Indonesian and Phoria means “to carry or be carried” in Latin. The combination creates “carry the beauty,” reflecting Koch’s relationship with his chocolate making: he allows himself to be swept up in the art of creating chocolate.
Koch’s first experience with chocolate began on a small organic cacao farm on the North Shore of Kauai in Hawaii. He was involved in the propagating, growing and harvesting of cacao trees. Fascinated by the process, Koch left the islands and traveled for a time until he found himself in Bend. September of 2010, Koch built a small production shop to start experimenting with the chocolate making process.
Spending the first six months teaching himself the process, making mistakes and trying again, Koch persevered with his recipes. Having never owned a business before, the one-man operation jokes that he has to be everyone from, “the CEO to the janitor.”
Currently Koch sources his cacao beans from a small farmers cooperative in the Dominican Republic and receives the chocolate already processed and ready for his method of tempering into bars. His products are, “the culmination of my world experiences,” explains Koch on his website. “They are inspired by my background growing up and exploring Southeast Asia, my love for permaculture/organic farming practices and natural medicine, my love for adventure, variety and of course my love for chocolate!”
As he wants to truly create his chocolate bars from farm to bar, Koch will be heading to Indonesia at the end of November (or as soon as he can make 6,000 bars of chocolate) to research small chocolate farms or organic cooperatives to sources his beans. He plans to expand his processing equipment and as a result, have complete control over this very small and innovative local business. Koch has already produced the first of such “bean to bar” chocolates from the farmer’s cooperative in the Dominican Republic.
The range of chocolate bars from Indahporia include: Aphrodite’s Love – organic 72 percent cacao infused with eight organic aphrodisiac herbs, La Pura Vida Happiness – organic/fairtrade 65 percent cacao with organic mood enhancing herbs and dotted with organic crystallized ginger, Himalayan Sea Salt with Goji Berries – organic 72 percent cacao infused with pink himalayan sea salt and organic himalayan goji berries, Go Bananas Over Coconut – 65 percent cacao chocolate, melted together with stone ground coconut butter and organic dried bananas and the truly unique local bar: Queso de Cabra which includes a rare sharp goat cheese from the artisan goat dairy, Tumalo Farms. The ‘Classico Reserve’ is cave-aged for one year and slowly melted into small batches of 72 percent cacao. Organic turkish figs are thinly sliced added to each bar with a touch of cayenne.
Not all of Koch’s chocolate pairings have been successful, however he is going to continue trying and is intent on creating more savory bars of chocolate, “I am inspired by microbreweries and would love to come out with a bar using hops,” he said. “Beer has been experimenting with chocolate (citing the Rogue Double Chocolate Stout), maybe chocolate should be experimenting with beer.”
Koch has already participated in a beer paring this spring at the Bend Brewing Company’s release of their Outback X.
Entering his second year of business Koch remarks, “I know there is a demand for the product, but it is tough to figure out how to distribute it.”
Locals have no trouble finding Indahporia’s chocolate as it can be found in Bend at Whole Foods, Natures, Newport Market, Thump Coffee and Backporch Coffee Roasters. He sells his bars in Hawaii and up and down the western seaboard for a total of about 35 stores, including many small cooperatives.
Koch plans to begin making you tube videos of his travels around Indonesia, filming his tours of cacao farms in Java, Bali and Papa New Guinea. His videos and photos will be posted on Facebook.
www.indahphoria.com, indahphoria@gmail.com, 503-928-7905. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Indahphoria-Chocolatier/248760105136026?ref=ts.
