Monday, June 17, 2013

prioritize.

Hi There,


Again, it isn't like I don't think about updating the Zimt blog on a respectable basis. But little things, like life, have been on the front burner.

I just typed "burger" instead of burner. And then I fixed it.

So, this is what is going on with Zimt! (What I can tell you about for now… more to come soon. That's the other thing, I can't really communicate what is going on because not enough has been completely finalized and things change from moment to moment- too quickly for even me to type.).

Vague, but… basically, the chocolate will taste quite different within the next couple of months! But don't worry- I have had the samples and they are incredible. I want some right now but we ate all the samples/I have a few precious spares in my office 20 minutes away. The difference is- we will start to use coconut sugar instead of coconut nectar to sweeten. This gives the chocolate a deeper, more caramel like taste and a good snap- even if you leave it in a drawer  for months and months and months. I couldn't do this before because we didn't have the equipment to grind the coconut sugar finely enough- this is why so many raw chocolate businesses go for agave/coconut nectar/ some other liquid sweetener initially. You see, a good deal of non-raw, organic or not, chocolate companies use blocks or chips of ready-made chocolate. These are made by big manufacturing companies, such as Valrohna or Callebaut or some such company, who can afford the equipment to grind sugar finely enough to make it very smooth in the chocolate- and also further refine the chocolate to make it even smoother. And chocolate companies will melt these down and "temper" the chocolate (changing the temperature and basically stirring the chocolate around) to give it a nice snap when it is broken and to make it shiny.  This is because solid sugar needs to be ground and ground and ground to make sure it is not crunchy in the chocolate, but smooth. A very capital intensive process.

But there are no raw chocolate companies that do this using raw coconut sugar so we make our chocolate "from scratch" and also use coconut nectar- a great option! But not the greatest, so I am moving on to the greatest that I can get for you- tasty raw coconut sugar. Num.

Also, Zimt will be found in many different locations, and I will not necessarily be the one delivering Zimt in my Smart car, or driving to the post to mail out boxes of chocolate and trying to keep it as cold as possible en route, battling the ever increasing outside temperatures.

Also, you may need to pose the question, "What does Zimt mean?", to someone doing a demo who is not me or my little cousin or my mom or one of my friends.

But they will have the answer for you.

Things are going well. The big picture is- that things are going well with Zimt. Very well.  That isn't to say that there haven't been a ton of challenges along the way- even very recently, but I am trying to just keep the bigger picture in mind. The bigger picture of Zimt doing well and that there are options and opportunities to keep things going and progressing. And the difficulties will make success all the better in the end.

I think about where Zimt was at this time last year. Not the greatest. Not terrible, but not even close to where I want. And now we are much closer!

It would have been great if two years ago some business professional had miraculously entered my life and said to me, "You're a good kid with a good idea, but you are doing it all wrong. And it will be painful if you keep going this route,  and you will burn out and/or go nowhere, so stop being so stubborn and uninformed and try this instead…." I think the business professional has now miraculously entered my life through experience- great things happen when you listen. Because some folks had suggested a few things that would have gotten me here faster, but nothing really can be accomplished without an open mind.

Back to the bigger picture. The real bigger picture is always this: loved ones.

So while Zimt has been on its own little roller coaster, I can sincerely say that it is not even anywhere close to roller coaster in my personal life.

And that is a little tricky when one is trying to run/grow one's company which will hopefully provide a great deal of security for one's loved ones.  So think about that before you decide to go and live out your dreams, not even considering the lack of extended medical benefits, dedicated vacation time, and sacrificing the luxury of being able to blame the guy in the next cubicle for printer malfunctions.

But really- at the end of the day- our friends and family are all that matter.  They dictate basically everything in our lives- this is truer for some than it is for others. For myself, though, I know that the only reason I am sticking around Vancouver is because of my loved ones. That's it. If they weren't here, or if they didn't exist, I would definitely not be here. Not that I am not thankful to live in such a beautiful city (just look at those mountains!), but… I have found what I feel to be far preferable in many aspects. Those aspects I can live without, but I don't think I could live without my crew.  Again, I am very thankful to live here.  Mostly because of my loves.

"Geez, Emma- you could be starving in Africa."

And I would definitely do that, if that were the only option of us being together.

Go give somebody you love a hug! And eat some chocolate!

xo emma

PS- also, click to save an innocent animal!
PPS- oooooor… go vegan and save a million innocent animals! Start with this tasty recipe: Amazing Nacho-esque Sauce - thank you, leafandgrain.com for the yummy recipe!