De Mendes Chocolates

De Mendes Chocolates is a bean-to-bar maker founded by the chocolatier César De Mendes, who works with native cacao from the Amazon. The company describes its ingredients as tradition and history and as the culture of forest peoples. Social and environmental integrity complete the recipe for a chocolate with an Amazonian terroir. De Mendes was born in Macapá, capital of the state of Amapá, to a quilombola mother and a riverside father, with Jewish and Moroccan ancestry. He moved with his family to Belém as a child, and his first memories of chocolate come from that city. His grandmother and mother made cacao juice and chocolate from fruit they picked themselves. Bars in the Povos da Floresta line carry the names of their communities, such as the Paiter Suruí 70% cacau bar. Other pieces pair Pará nuts with cupulate, a 70% cupuaçu preparation, or with 60% cacao chocolate and a sprinkle of flor de sal. One bonbon combines chocolate with Apuí coffee. Each bar is presented as neutralising one day of the buyer's greenhouse gas emissions. The company gives its address as Rua Segunda in Colônia Chicano, Santa Bárbara do Pará, in the state of Pará.