Harper
Macaw: Meet D.C.’s Very Own
Chocolate Factory
10 November2017 washingtonFAMILY.com



TEXT: Beth Roessner
A good bar of chocolate should
be complex. It should have
layers of flavors like bark,
cloves, coffee and fruit. It should have
a nutty taste and deep undertones.

The bar should also be both bitter
and sweet, but not too sweet that the
whole bar is eaten in one sitting.

This complexity of chocolate has
always fascinated Sarah Hartman. A
foodie by nature, she knew she wanted
to work in the food industry. While
living in her home country of Brazil
in 2010, she quit her job in human
resources and attended culinary school
to pursue her dream. While in school,
she worked in several restaurant
kitchens, but soon learned she “hated
restaurants, but loved food.”
She quit culinary school and began
to research different gourmet and
artisanal foods like cheese, wine and
beer. the mother of a toddler.

They specialize in five “base
chocolates,” known as the Rainforest
“But nothing caught my attention
Collection—one “adult” milk
quite like chocolate did,” said
Hartman, a lifelong chocolate fanatic.

“Even in culinary school, I wanted to
be doing something with chocolate.”
Tucked into a far corner of Northwest
Washington near Maryland, is D.C.’s
very own chocolate factory, Harper
Macaw, started by Hartman and her
husband. You won’t find orange-tinted
chocolate, three single-farm chocolate
bars and a chocolate bar blended with
beans of multiple farms.

“Blends make more enjoyable
chocolates because it brings together
what’s the best from all these different
The percentages marked on the bars’
wrappers indicate how much cocoa is
within. The higher the percentage, the
more cocoa is included and the more
intense the flavor, “but it should not
dictate how bitter or non-bitter that
chocolate is.” (Think dark chocolate.)
In 2011, Hartman and her husband
moved to the United States. Still
immersed in the chocolate industry,
she kept reading and researching. By
cocoas. It doesn’t highlight one flavor
talking to different producers and
over another,” she said.

continually reading, she wanted to
discover what her niche would be.

men or foil-wrapped bars loaded with
Then they also have specialty bars:
sugar. But in the converted newspaper
There’s a mocha bar made with
“There isn’t a school that you go to
distribution center, you will find a
Compass Coffee, and a bourbon-
where you come out and you’re a
small showroom, an assembly line,
barrel-aged chocolate bar, where the
chocolate maker. You kind of have to
kitchen space and artisanal chocolates.

cocoa beans are aged in a barrel from
figure it out yourself,” she said.

Harper Macaw is a chocolate factory,
D.C.’s One Eight Distilling.

The factory opened in December 2015.

versus a chocolatier. The factory takes
Hartman is not afraid of playing
cocoa beans and transforms them
Hartman found her niche: She makes
with non-traditional flavors. During
it a point to only source her cocoa
the 2016 presidential campaign, she
from three Brazilian farms, “because
created a line of bars known as the
many of the craft chocolate makers
Political Collection. The tea party bar
in the U.S. were not using Brazilian
into chocolate—whereas a chocolatier
creates confections with pre-made
chocolate. “When I learned more about
was infused with Earl Grey Tea. Red
the production of it, I was really
State was infused with raspberries and
fascinated,” Harper said, who is also
strawberries.

beans.” harper macaw | Page 12
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