I saw this video about New York based Mast Brothers Chocolate about a year or so ago, and have desperately wanted to visit their shop ever since. As someone who’s interested in starting their own business, I found the approach they discuss really inspirational. I love the romantic idealism of treating their business like a boys own adventure, and striving for something that feels nostalgic and hand made, as opposed to mass produced and uniform.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I managed to satisfy my desire by paying their Williamsburgh shop a visit. I was hoping to take the factory tour they mention on the site, but alas they aren’t doing them at the moment as they are in the process of expanding their operation. However, when the lovely guy behind the counter saw we were a bit bummed out about not getting to do the tour, he snuck us in to have a look at their new space. It’s a really lovely big, open brick walled warehouse unit, but what hits you first is the smell. It’s like being in a chocolate cloud. I’m pretty sure I started to drool almost instantly. The room is filled will sacks of cocoa beans, a roasting oven, ‘conching’ drums (these heat and grind the beans for 3 days until the chocolate is beautifully smooth), and this awesome mad scientist-esque glass vacuum pump device that separates the cracked beans from the husk. It’s very cool, and feels really nicely old fashioned.

Obviously you can’t visit a place like this without sampling the goods, but as well as trying their small range of bars, we also got to sample a few of their new products including an amazing chocolate pecan cookie, a couple of different types of caramel, and the craziest brownie I’ve ever tasted. It’s consistency was like a ripe soft cheese, and equally as pungent in a chocolatey kind of way. Pretty incredible. When the guy who gave us the tour hear we were from the UK he told us that they are just about to export a shed load of chocolate to Paul A Young for him to make truffles with, which will give those who don’t know Mast Bothers an indication of the quality of their product and their standing within the chocolate community.

But by far the coolest thing that Mast Brothers is doing (which they allude to in the video) is taking their romanticism to the next level by actually sailing their cocoa beans over from their suppliers. The maiden voyage of The Black Seal, a 70-foot cargo ship that they had converted into a three mast shipping schooner, docked in New York a couple of months ago after two weeks on The Atlantic bringing with it 20 or so tonnes of cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic. Amazing. And they are already planning subsequent voyages in the near future.

Maybe I’ve been in the US too long or I’m getting cheesy in my old age, but I’m going to end this post on a Mark Twain quote that I’m sure Mast Brothers are familiar with and I’ll be taking as words of encouragement as I endeavor to set up my own business in the future:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I unbelievably forgot my camera when we went to the shop, so…chocolate photo courtesy of mastbrothers.com and magazine spread is a photo story on the Mast Brothers that appears in this month’s edition of Edible Brooklyn.

The long and short of it is that Starbucks is going to pick a few select outlets and un-brand them in order to create coffee shops with a more old fashioned and local feel. If this test is successful, they will then roll it out to other sites. Some people have described this move as a demonstration of a business being mindful of what their consumers want, but in my mind is proves what a cynical and aggressive brand Starbucks has become, and to be frank it pisses me off.

How Starbucks started as a business is a million miles away from where they are now. Originally a one off shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market that sold artisan coffees and equipment, it didn’t become the phenomenon that it is today until it was sold to an entrepreneur called Howard Schultz in 1987. Famously in the 90s, Starbucks opened a new store every working weekday, and this pace was maintained well into the noughties.

As a result, for many Starbucks has become the ugly face of globalisation, and the site of protesters camped outside whenever they roll out yet another identical, anodyne store, a familiar one. This, along with the proliferation of all the other high street coffee chains all vying for our business, seems to have kick started a healthy trend for more traditional, independent coffee shops.

Unlike their chain gang counterparts, these shops place the emphasis on quality and ambiance over quantity and branding. A couple of great examples of the sort of place I’m talking about are The Scandinavian Kitchen and the recently opened Kaffiene that are down the road from where I work. These cafes are different, have a personality all of their own, and are a nice place to spend time. You don’t feel like you’re having a ‘vision’ thrust down your throat when you’re in there, and shock horror, they also serve up a decent cup of coffee. Not a hazelnut syrup or ’squirty’ cream canister in site.

Not surprisingly, disillusioned people have begun to migrate from the chains to seek refuge and good coffee in these independent shops. After all, if you’ve got half a brain and some taste buds why wouldn’t you? This has obviously been noted by the business bods and money grubbing analysts over at Starbucks, and they now want to get a slice of the ’slow coffee’ action. Their plan? To open ’stealth stores’ that imitate the increasingly popular indie coffee shops that have been set up as an antidote and alternative to their own brand.

With the buying power, financial backing and clout of a company like Starbucks, these fucks (I’m sorry, but in my opinion they are) will be able to open a raft of these imitation indies much faster than any start up business, either by turning existing stores or buying up prime real estate. They will no doubt clumsily flood the market with their interpretation, and in the process fool thousands of consumers into believeing that they’re having an experience that they’re not.

So how long before the idea of an indie coffee shop becomes as ubiquitous as your friendly neigbourhood Starbucks and the real indies are forced out of the marketplace? Who knows. And you never know, maybe consumers will smell the fat corporate rat and vote with their feet. I certainly hope so.

Rant over.