Louis Rossetto, founder of Wired and evangelist of the internet age, is gathering his former colleagues next Friday in San Francisco for a celebration of the pioneering geek magazine. (Executives from Conde Nast, the media conglomerate that now owns the title, aren't invited.) Ah, those early optimistic days: Rossetto planted his standard in 1993, in the first issue, famously declaring that "the Digital Revolution is whipping through our lives like a Bengali typhoon." Wired is now a successful lifestyle magazine in the same stable as Vanity Fair and Vogue. And Rossetto has turned his entrepreneurial energy to his chocolate-making venture, Tcho, though its still "in beta" as they say in Silicon Valley. But it's reassuring that at least the fervent language remains a constant. "Tcho is a new kind of chocolate company for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts," promises the company website. For more chocolate evangelism, read on.

TCHO is a new kind of chocolate company for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts.



TCHO is where technology meets chocolate; where Silicon Valley start-up meets San Francisco food culture.



TCHO is obsessively good dark chocolate.



TCHO is a direct, transparent connection between the farmers and the consumers, from the pod to the palate, from high concept to sensual experience.



TCHO is an innovative method for you to discover the chocolate you like best.

The Company.



TCHO is serious about chocolate, we aren't just "re–melters" (like the majority of people who work with chocolate), we are manufacturers, with our very own factory capable of producing 4000 metric tons per year - joining only a dozen other major manufacturers in the US.



TCHO was founded by a Space Shuttle technologist turned chocolate maker and a grizzled industry veteran who set up chocolate factories for 40 years from Costa Rica to Germany.



TCHO's team has deep experience from Silicon Valley to Berlin, from Fair Trade to Ferraris, from chocolate start up to Web start up.



TCHO isn't funded by VCs or investment bankers, but friends and families brought together to invest in a dream. And every employee is an owner.



TCHO is scrappy and high tech – recycling and refurbing legacy chocolate equipment and mating it with the latest process control, information, and communications systems.



TCHO's social mission is the next step beyond Fair Trade – helping farmers by transferring knowledge of how to grow and ferment better beans so they can escape commodity production to become premium producers.

The Factory.



TCHO is located in the heart of San Francisco, at Pier 17 on the legendary San Francisco waterfront, between Fisherman's Wharf and the Ferry Building, and five minutes from SF landmarks the Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower.



TCHO will be the only chocolate factory in San Francisco.



TCHO's tasting room will be a gracious and remarkable space in which to experience TCHO's chocolates and drinks.



TCHO's factory is large enough to enable us to have impact with the growers in order to acquire the best beans, and is small enough to lavish attention on creating obsessively good chocolate.

The Chocolate.



TCHO's obsessively good dark chocolate is limited edition varietals and origins, in original, innovative packaging.



TCHO chocolate is available only at our factory store, and on our website.



TCHO encourages our customers to help us develop our products, as we launch limited run, "beta editions" available only at the factory to those who join our flavor testers.



TCHO is a new way to discover your chocolate. "Dark," "percentage cacao," and recently "varietal" and "origin" have been placeholders for knowing what the chocolate you are about to put in your mouth actually tastes like. TCHO has developed a new method (taxonomy) to help you find the chocolate you like, using common-sense descriptors like Nutty, Fruity, or Chocolatey.

The Experience.



TCHO is about helping you become a knowledgeable enthusiast, since without context and meaning complete enjoyment of chocolate is impossible.



TCHO's website connects our customers to the minds making TCHO, as well as to each other.



TCHO's tour will be a multimedia exploration of how chocolate is made, how TCHO makes chocolate, and of chocolate culture.



TCHO creates new rituals for sharing chocolate.