Interview with Moiré Chocolate Founder Julia Ziegler-Haynes

by The Post Supply January 20, 2023

Moiré Chocolate

The Post Supply got to chat with Moiré Chocolate Founder Julia Ziegler-Haynes. Read the full interview below where she discusses her history, environmental feminism, social justice and how chocolate can be an edible art form that can change the world!

You come from an incredible food background. Can you tell us a little bit about your history and what drew you specifically to create your own chocolate?

A handful of years ago, I was going camping with some friends and the forecast said the temperature was going to turn punishingly cold once the sun went down. I pictured all of us bundled up around the campfire and knew I wanted to bring a homemade hot chocolate to sip from our tin mugs. While packing my bags, and without giving too much thought to measurements or ratios, I haphazardly threw some ingredients together from my pantry: cacao powder, date sugar, and sea salt. That night we sat under the stars and I stirred the cocoa in a big pot with steamy oat milk as it turned thick and creamy, not too sweet- just rich and uncutious. Everyone sat silently with their necks craned back to capture the last drops from their mugs. The next morning everyone pleaded like kittens for more. I enjoyed it as well of course but it was one friend of mine, who for days later wouldn’t stop hounding me for the recipe, who convinced me I might have something worth pursuing. And that is where my fascination with cacao was sparked. Within a few months of intense scientific tinkering, once I felt I’d landed on a drinking chocolate I was happy with, I moved on to bar chocolate and the fire of enthusiasm only ignited further. Since that time, I have spent the entirety of the pandemic educating myself on the history of this magical bean, running hundreds of roasts, gleefully developing recipes, and simultaneously digging deeper into environmental feminism, ethical business practices, transparent trade, sustainable packaging and so on. In such a dark, isolating, and divisive time in history, I found a source of serious joy and wonder, that made me feel intrinsically connected to nature, our planet--in awe of and deeply devoted to the people who inhabit it.

A little background about me: I am an artist who eventually gravitated towards cooking. Self taught, for many years I ran an underground supper club out of my house in Brooklyn, NY. To me, creating food with my hands was so similar to the feeling of creating art--considering color, textures, perceptions, memories... and the instantaneous and visceral emotional connection you made through serving your audience. Over the course of my early 30’s, my culinary path continued to wander. I hosted an unscripted cooking and traveling web series on Vice’s food channel, Munchies, named The Dinner Bell, based on my supper club and all the friends I’ve made along the way. By the end of the series I was pregnant with my daughter and when she was born I decided to take time off to get to know her. During this time I realized I no longer wanted to pull 18 hour days shopping and cooking and cleaning up for the masses--I wanted to concentrate my cooking skills down into one potent, tangible, packaged experience. I had always brought along my artist’s mind and social and environmental justice roots with me, and chocolate could be a place where all paths converge. A beautiful piece of edible art-- with a conscience.

Moiré is beyond special because of its flavor but can you speak to the ways that you have thoughtfully sourced and crafted it as well?

Most craft chocolate makers would attest that there is no elevated chocolate experience without the vast knowledge and care of the farmers who oversee the many, labor-intensive steps from planting a sapling to sorting dried, fermented beans into sacks to sell. The flavors developed during these meticulous stages are precisely what chocolate makers are trying to highlight and capture in their finished product. When a chocolate maker is first starting out, their choices of where to source from are somewhat limited. Fortunately there are a couple of very dedicated and knowledgeable importers who have made sourcing sustainable and ethically traded cacao more accessible. As a chef, I have known the level of fulfillment that comes with working directly with farmers, and as Moiré grows and expands, this is the dynamic that I am most looking forward to.

What is your dream for Moiré? How do you envision it changing the chocolate landscape...or even...the world!!

My hope for Moiré is to be part of the small group of makers who continue to help usher in a new regard for chocolate. One with intrigue, and appreciation of the nuanced, bespoke nature of each bar. To consume craft chocolate with consideration and to understand its true value. Most of us are unaware of the amount of work that goes into farming cacao with all of the trials and tribulations from pollination to insects, to climate disasters; it’s serious, back breaking work. And from the time the exported cacao beans arrive at the factory, there is at least a week or more of intense, physical labor to turn a jute sack of un-roasted beans to the silky, rich, unctuous treat we all go wild for. It will take people reassessing their estimation of the value of chocolate, who go out of their way to learn where their food comes from much like they did with coffee in the 90’s, and more recently with natural and biodynamic wines in the early 2000’s, to even start to turn the tide of the severe human rights abuses that are the result of the worldwide lust for industrialized chocolate. It is a very difficult relationship to disrupt; our society at large has an undeniable dependency on commodified cacao that is steeped in nostalgia and we are accustomed to buying that fond memory, that energetic jolt, for a dollar or two, without recognition of the actual environmental toll and disregard for human kind that it requires.