Chai drinking chocoholics: The Valentine’s Day treat you’ve been waiting for’s officially arrived. Yes, I already told you where the fair trade chocolate and flower deals are this Valentine’s Day — but here’s one more sweet deal to enjoy: Organic, fair trade SLO Chai Chocolate!

This sweet-n-spicy yummy’s brought to you by two socio-eco conscious companies based in San Luis Obispo — SLO Chai and Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates. We’re talking 65% bittersweet chocolate paired with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, star anise, and other Indian spices.

The chocolate may be 65% bittersweet, but the product itself’s all sweet, with none of the ethical bitterness associated with conventional chocolates that use illegal child labor. SLO Chai Chocolate’s fair trade and organic certified. Plus, a dollar per bag of chocos (15 pieces for $5.99) will be donated to the nonprofit Project Hope and Fairness to help pay for farming equipment for 10 cocoa-farming villages in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and raise awareness about labor issues in the cocoa industry.

SLO Chai Chocolate’s created by serious fair trade and organic advocates. Tom of Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates not only makes the chocolates, but he also runs Project Hope and Fairness and organizes group excursions to visit West Africa, both to educate visitors and to aid cocoa farmers. Tom’s also a professor; Le Meems at Hallelujah says he was her favorite grad school professor — and recommends Sweet Earth. And Jennifer of Earth Friendly Weddings says Sweet Earth Chocolates make great wedding favors.

Tamra and Joel Pace of SLO Chai, for their part, have been delighting their local farmers’ market patrons with fair trade, organic chai for years now. I got to meet them — along with their son Bohden — when they were in LA last year. Their Vanilla Spice Latte is the best chai I’ve tasted — not too sweet, with no weird aftertaste that you get after drinking some of the non-organic chais.

Perhaps most importantly, the latte can be used for delicious mixed drinks! My favorite: Bermuda Chai-Angle. Yummy –

Yes, there are other organic chai chocolates, like Dagoba Chai Chocolate bar. That bar, however, is not fair trade certified, though Dagoba does claim all of its chocolate is procured ethically. Dagoba is a company that’s generally known for its commitment to socio-environmental issues; however Dagoba’s now owned by Hershey’s, which isn’t so concerned.

I still think Dagoba’s a good option, especially as you can find their goods in Whole Foods and other stores. But if you’re going to buy online anyway, I’d go with Sweet Earth.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

Tags: fairtrade, organic, chocolate, sweetearth, slochai, chai

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