The brand Mast Brothers chocolate first appeared on the market in 2007 first as truffles and later, bars. Their product stood out thanks to stylish packaging and a quality product. Starting off in their apartment the brothers experimented with different types of cacao and ingredients. They sold their chocolate at special events and the Brooklyn Flea, a weekend market in the hipster borough of New York City.
In December of 2015, Scott published a four-part piece on his blog, claiming that during a workday in 2008 one of the brothers confessed a major secret to Art Pollard of Armano Chocolate. Scott reported the Masts admitted to remelting other chocolates and repackaging them, despite their promise of original recipes and methods.
One of the biggest developments in Mast Brothers chocolate is the closure of their branded retail outlets in Los Angeles and London. Rick Mast says the closures are part of regrouping, returning to their roots by concentrating on their Brooklyn Navy Yard production facility.
Have you tasted Mast Brothers chocolate? Want to weigh in on the debates on the packaging? Want to give your take on the treatment of the company in the media? Post and comment below to tell us what you think.
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A blogger recently accused Mast Brothers of using industrial chocolate in their bars when it first started, contradicting the chocolate company's bean-to-bar narrative. Andrew Burton/Getty Images hide caption
With their impressive beards and lumberjack aesthetic, the Mast Brothers were the epitome of Brooklyn hipsters, part ZZ Top and part Brawny paper towel guy. Their chocolate was quintessentially New Brooklyn, made with a small-batch process called bean-to-bar, in which the chocolate maker oversees every aspect of the production process.
The Masts worked hard to build a brand as serious artisans. Only 1,500 bars are made each day, and the $10 bars come in beautifully-designed wrappers. In publicity photos, the brothers look almost plaintive, as though making and eating chocolate all day is joyless.
Craig, however, hasn't been satisfied. He says because their chocolate is marketed on the basis of its authenticity, they're still frauds. It would appear some of Craig's zeal stems from the long-held perception in high-end chocolate circles that the Masts are johnny-come-latelies whose products are overrated.
In a narrow sense, yes. Most people can't taste the difference between the finest chocolate and mediocre chocolate, and so if they believed that what they were getting was some of the best money could buy, then they might have been snookered. Even some of the experts who've always been suspicious of Mast Brothers would likely be fooled in a blind taste test, just as wine experts have been fooled time and again.
If you have $10 to spend on chocolate, you're likely going to feel good about that decision. The price sends a signal to the brain that it's top-quality chocolate, so you may experience a high level of pleasure when you eat it.
I don't mean to sound like a gastronomic nihilist. My conclusion from the Mast Brothers fiasco is not that you should distrust your brain, but that you should trust your gut. Eat what makes you happy. I bought a Mast chocolate bar a while back and was unimpressed. But I'd be lying if I said those twee wrappers never tempted me in the years since.
Travel to the hipster capital of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York, and you'll find the headquarters of Rick and Michael Mast's chocolate company. Mast Brothers dates back to 2007 and the company briefly had an operation in London's trendy Shoreditch between 2014 and 2018.
The brown and black animal print pattern packaging on this Mast Brothers bar was vastly minimal. The text on this 70g chocolate bar was as simple as can be, with only the product name and weight documented on the front.
Smokey notes lead in the aroma of the this two-ingredient 73% dark chocolate bar, but dark bitter notes dominate the taste when the bar finally reveals its flavour. A slow melt and a reserved, muted flavour made for a disappointing tasting experience.
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Fritz BÃtzer, who changed his name to Frederick Belmont when he settled in Harrogate, learned to become a confectioner and chocolatier while travelling through Switzerland and France. In 1919, he opened Betty's Tea Room in the Yorkshire town which has since become an institution. The company still makes and sells a wide range of chocolates using the finest Swiss Grand Cru.
Pour one out for chocolate's least favorite hipsters, local beards Rick and Michael Mast, whom Eater reports will be moving their "bean-to-bar" Brooklyn chocolate factory to Mount Kisco, New York. Meanwhile, the Mast Brothers have already closed their Williamsburg storefront, at 111 North 3rd Street. Run out of town by mobs of hipster luddites duped into buying overpriced, industrial chocolate melted down and then dressed up in expensive terrazzo-print paper, perhaps? Who's to say!
Then, scandale! In 2015, a Dallas-based blogger writing under the name "Scott" dug into the Mast bros' craft chocolate claims, and hung their dirty laundry out to dry. According to Scott, the pair had been using bulk commercial chocolate, melting it and remolding it, a practice fundamentally at odds with their bean-centric craft claims, and a faux-pas many of their peers had suspected them of committing all along.
In the company's earliest days, it's possible the Mast brothers made their chocolate themselves, start to finish, Scott admitted. But ultimately, it seemed they had been selling their customers a lie. The ensuing coverage was not kind, with one Quartz headline offering to explain "How the Mast Brothers fooled the world into paying $10 a bar for crappy hipster chocolate," and even NPR wondering, "Are You a Sucker if You Like Mast Brothers Chocolate?"
Mast initially denied all claims that they had in any way fleeced their public, but then admitted to using remelted chocolate "in some of their early creations," which they concocted during a "fun experimental year." Still, sales dropped off dramatically after the news broke. In 2017, the company "consolidated," to borrow Fortune's phrasing, its operations in Brooklyn, closing its London and Los Angeles stores in favor of building out a new facility in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Doing so would reportedly allow them to up their annual sales from $10 million to $100 million, although as Eater points out, it's presently unclear what will become of the Navy Yard plan if their Brooklyn factory heads upstate.
Less than a year after opening a 6,000-square-foot chocolate factory and shop in L.A.'s Downtown Arts District, Mast chocolate is quietly closing the location, along with its London facility. The company is moving all operations to Mast's new 65,000-square-foot facility in Brooklyn's Navy Yard.
The gallery-like Mast location in Los Angeles opened last May and was billed as a new beginning for the company that came under fire in recent years for misrepresenting itself as a "bean-to-bar" maker when evidence suggested otherwise. In 2015, Dallas food blogger Scott Craig, in a ballyhooed four-part investigation, revealed that the company melted down industrial chocolate in its early days while passing it off as made-from-scratch.
I wrote about the Masts for Los Angeles Magazine last year, in a piece on the rising bean-to-bar movement here, and noted how peculiar the downtown factory and tour was. The Scandinavian-chic space has five large windowed modules that give guests a chance to watch chocolate makers turn out Mast goodies, Wonka-style. The impression is that we're seeing how Mast makes its famous candy bars even though the chocolate is mostly made across the country in New York.
Mast is run by brothers Rick and Michael Mast, who started the company in their Brooklyn apartment in 2007. The company says employees in both Los Angeles and London are being offered positions in New York, where Mast plans on increasing production to $100 million in annual chocolate sales. The company is betting on the sale of smaller, one-oz. bars for $3 rather than its larger 2.5-oz. bars that go for $7 and up. Mast also expanded the brand recently with an organic, non-alcoholic, craft cocoa brew.
I am a Manhattan-based writer covering luxury travel and luxury residential real estate. I was a contributing writer at Barron's Penta magazine where I penned the Trendspotting column and also covered luxury real estate, pursuits, collecting and other topics. I am co-editor of Pursuitist, the luxury lifestyle site and served as co-editor of Luxist, the luxury lifestyle and travel website at AOL where I oversaw the Luxist Awards, a program that honored the very best in fine living. For 13 years I was a staff writer at Forbes magazine, where I covered real estate, insurance and personal finance, among other areas. I am also the author of six books, including \"The Closet Entrepreneur\" and \"The Business of America is Business.\" Follow me on Twitter at @carriecoolidge and Instagram at @carrie.coolidge1
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