Criollo Cacao is the rarest form of cacao, consisting of only five percent of the total cacao production in the world. Like wine, the taste of Criollo varies slightly each season depending on the terroir and harvest conditions. Its complex, yet subtle flavors are preferred by leading chocolate makers, and reserved for the finest quality confections. The Mayan Cacao Bar was crafted from eighty-five percent Criollo Cacao exclusively for Stories + Objects by master chocolatero Mathieu Brees in a numbered edition of three hundred bars.

Mathieu Brees is a chocolatero, or chocolate maker, living on the Peninsula de Yucatán, Mexico. Brees, originally from Belgium, fell in love with chocolate at an early age, and wanted to explore the Central American, Mayan roots of the beloved confection. He settled at the outskirts of Mérida, Mexico twelve years ago to realize his dream of owning a bean to bar cacao tree plantation and artisan chocolate foundry. The plantation that Brees operates along with his partner, Belcolade, specializes in the rare Criollo bean. Criollo is less disease resistant than the other, more common, varieties of Trinitario and Forastero cacao, and its, therefore, conservation is an important aspect of his work. Criollo is considered to be the purest and noblest form of cacao imparting rich and complex tastes to dark chocolate.