Walk into the Mast Brothers' chocolate factory in the Arts District and, at first, you might mistake the space for a contemporary art gallery. Chocolate bars are displayed on stacked wooden blocks like miniature paintings, their wrappers alone worthy of praise. And if their latest collection looks familiar at all, it's because the packaging comes from a fellow DTLA neighbor: Block Shop, a textile company that produces California-inspired scarves, quilts, pillows and wall hangings.
The Los Angeles collection joins Mast's other city collections (Brooklyn and London) as a tribute to our fair city with six bars of chocolate (three dark, three milk). "Each collection showcases a different profile of each city," says Rich Fell, who manages Mast's Los Angeles location. "And L.A. has some really great flavors."
As a nod to the city's Mexican heritage, there is both a horchata and piloncillo chocolate bar, the latter being a Latin American brown sugar used frequently in Mexican sweets. A popcorn chocolate bar is Mast's ode to the movies, while the orange chocolate nods to our fragrant citrus groves. A miso & sesame bar and a Los Angeles blend bar (made with chocolate from Madagascar, Tanzania and Peru) round out the collection, with all of them wrapped in Block Shop's gorgeous patterns. If you're looking for a holiday present for your sugarholic friend, these are a pretty sweet—and stunning—gift.
Want to learn how all of these chocolate bars are made? Mast provides a thorough walk-through of their facility, offering 30-minute tours that take place every hour, on the hour, from 11am to 5pm. You'll get to see the entire process, from cracking open cacao shells to grinding the nibs to wrapping each beautiful bar. Tours cost $10 (but are free for kiddos under 10!), and include a tasting of four different bars.
Oh, and did we mention they have chocolate beer? Well, sort of. Mast makes a delicious drink called Cocoa Beer, a non-alcoholic, dairy-and-gluten-free beverage produced by filtering cocoa nibs in water, then carbonating the drink. The three different versions include a traditional, coconut-infused beer and hibiscus beer, and they're all pretty stellar (and only $4).
Cocoa beer, chocolate, pretty prints—Mast, we're in love.
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