Cloudforest, located in Southeast Portland, produces a wide range of chocolate bars, ranging from “Orchid,” made with house-made vanilla extract to “GOMA,” a grey chocolate bar made with black sesame seeds that tastes like white chocolate. Cloudforest also serves delicious freshly-baked cookies using their chocolate, as well as coffee drinks and seasonal hot chocolates.
In the fall of 2009, Sebastian Cisneros embarked upon a mission to tease out and understand the nuances of cacao and create unconventional chocolate flavor combinations. The initial setup only allowed the company to source already-processed chocolate from larger fine chocolate makers in Europe, combine it with their recipes, and reshape it into bars.
In 2014, the company launched its first chocolate bar featuring single-estate Ecuadorian cacao, under the name Cloudforest. Unlike the previous releases, this bar marked the first time Cloudforest took control of all processing steps from dry cacao beans to its final chocolate form. These steps included roasting the cacao beans, refining the roasted cacao with sugar, and conching (homogenizing and deacidifying) the chocolate to improve flavor and texture.
Cloudforest has grown at a steady, organic pace in the last couple years to a point where their chocolate is now represented in various independent retail outlets across the country. Cloudforest is located at 727 SE Morrison Street in Portland.
