There are many positive adjectives one might use to describe chocolate: velvety, creamy, even heavenly. But eco-friendly is not on the list. The cacao seed it comes from can be grown only near the equator (which means lots of fossil fuel gets burned to ship it around the world); the crop is often overplanted (which is a strain on the environment); and dangerous amounts of chemical fertilizers and herbicides are often used to grow the crop (which puts groundwater, as well as workers, at risk).

So when I started a blog called Chocolate in Context two years ago, I was intrigued to find an enclave of chocolatiers on the West Coast for whom making the delicacy more sustainable-or easier on the planet-was a priority. And though chocolate might never be an entirely guiltless pleasure in this respect, these pioneers have found nuanced ways of thinking about the interdependence of environment and community that go beyond tallying the shipping miles on what we consume.

Natural flavors, locally grown
The San Francisco Bay Area is a kingdom ruled by innovative gourmands and restaurateurs who advocate locally farmed ingredients; they have woven the politics of producing food with fewer chemicals, and caring for the planet, into fine dining for decades. Here, chocolate makers (alchemists who turn rough cacao beans into shiny blocks of chocolate) and chocolatiers (artists who blend that chocolate with other ingredients and mold it into morsels) are the elite courtiers.

Chuck Siegel, a veteran chocolatier who's been in the Bay Area for 20 years, was one of the first to invite me into his candy kitchen shortly after I began writing about chocolate. His company, Charles Chocolates, was new and growing quickly.

Siegel inquired about my preferences when I showed up at his factory in Emeryville, then plied me with "peanut butterflies" filled with homemade praline, and mojito bonbons infused with Jamaican dark rum, the sweet juice of organic Mexican limes, and spearmint from nearby Jacobs Farm. With a focused energy that combined a professorial demeanor with a life-of-the-party attitude, Siegel explained that he avoids pesticides and preservatives whenever possible. "That's just a fundamental belief I have in what food should be," he said. Siegel-a man who makes candy-showed me that eating locally, organically, and sustainably could be a lifestyle choice. "Being part of the Bay Area food community gives you a better sense of what you put into your body," he told me.

Another San Francisco chocolate master, Michael Recchiuti, got his start at the San Francisco Farmers Market. He based an entire collection of truffles on herbs that he picked up from other vendors after the market closed-the resulting flavor combinations include lavender-vanilla and tarragon-grapefruit. "I've always been into acquiring flavor based on its natural source, as opposed to using flavoring in a jar," Recchiuti told me when we met earlier this year. He and Siegel have much in common, and Siegel actually consulted for Recchiuti Confections years ago.

We spent most of our first meeting talking about food politics instead of chocolate recipes. Ten years into the business, Recchiuti still buys produce directly from regional farms like EatWell and Mariquita that take advantage of California's long growing season, cut back on food miles, and elect not to use chemical pesticides. He values sustainable agriculture, and he's cultivated a clientele (both locally and across the country) with the same interests. "The group of people that we deal with is highly politically motivated," he explained. "So they want to know where things come from."

Stephanie Marcon trained with Recchiuti for six months in between a career as an information-technology consultant and starting her own company, Coco-luxe. "I'll use local if I can get local," she told me recently, glad to chat on her cell phone while driving to work. She opts for concentrated fruit flavors instead of fresh produce because of the price, though she's proud to use high-quality cream from a California dairy and she plans to create a new bonbon using port from her husband's new winery, 122 West (which, in turn, will only use grapes grown along the longitudinal line after which it's named).

But Marcon pointed out to me that all efforts to green chocolate are severely limited by one fact: "Chocolate is not grown in this country."

Cacao "beans" are actually seeds from the football-size pods of a rain-forest tree that will grow only within 20 degrees of the equator. Cacao was cultivated by the Maya in the region that now runs from southern Mexico to Honduras as early as 2,600 years ago, and by the 19th century European traders had transplanted it to similar climes in Africa and Asia. Since colonial times, chocolate has been a high-mileage commodity.

Cacao is an understory tree, which means that it's part of an ecosystem in which a dense canopy of leaves from plants like banana trees provide shade. Maintained in small, botanically diverse plantings, cacao trees can be a natural conservation effort. But overplanting of cacao is a strain on the environment. Chemical fertilizers and herbicides are often used, but it's easy to lose track of the problem since the beans pass through several middlemen between the farm and the open market. Furthermore, mistreatment of cacao workers is often a reality.

The American chocolate maker Guittard provides answers to important questions about chocolate's origins. The fourth-generation family business now produces the high-end E. Guittard line (named for current CEO Gary Guittard's French great-grandfather, Etienne), made with beans that can be traced to outstanding farms in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Madagascar. The company also offers a chocolate certified as Fair Trade, ensuring ethical labor practices. It's not surprising that Guittard is located in the San Francisco suburb of Burlingame. Siegel, Recchiuti, and Marcon rely on Guittard's chocolate, which they blend with other domestic and imported varieties to create the precise flavors they want.

Scharffen Berger, another Bay Area chocolate maker that uses artisanal methods, is coveted among retail consumers. It's also my favorite. Founders John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg began scouring the globe for the best cacao in 1996, determined to trump the waxy and too-sweet Hershey Bar with a product that highlighted cacao's complex fruity and savory flavors. They were so successful (Scharffen Berger now sells over $20 million of chocolate annually) that Hershey acquired the Berkeley-based company in 2005. It may be hard for the independent-minded founders to join a major corporation without compromising their principles, but for the moment that's what they're doing.

When I had the chance to meet the maverick entrepreneur John Scharffenberger, he explained that he'd turned day-to-day operations over to someone else, choosing to spend more time on cacao plantations in Central America and West Africa. "I'm actually getting involved in more agricultural parts of chocolate now," he told me. "I'm getting really interested in reforestation and forest restoration." He's been working with farmers in Guatemala to plant valuable mahogany and teak shade trees for a planting of flavorful genetically rare cacao.

His work points to the notion that local and sustainable have myriad definitions. But both words imply a sense of community. The San Francisco chocolate scene is made up of passionate, intelligent people with a global sensibility and a commitment to local causes. That approach can make any confection taste a bit sweeter.

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