Q&A with Cacao Regina founders Kane and Rosie Dijkman

This week we’re meeting Terra Linda couple Kane and Rosie Dijkman, who spent FIFTEEN YEARS experimenting with chocolate before finally launching in 2023. Their dream? To see Cacao Regina in shops and wine bars throughout Marin.

Wine bars, you say? Yep — super-taster Rosie can pair each bar with its soulmate wine. Anyone else suddenly craving a wine + chocolate tasting night? Can we make this happen??

Best part of the interview is what they didn’t tell me (see Fun Fact below).

Día de los Muertos celebrations all weekend long, plus Halloween parades galore on Friday — so grab your mask, wings, or whatever’s currently covered in glitter.

Enjoy,

Kim Neumann

PS – Don’t forget! ⏰ Daylight Savings Time ends Sunday 11/2. Clocks "fall back" one hour at 2 a.m.

Bean-to-bar, small-batch chocolate makers share the results of a fifteen-year experiment tempered by love (and ethically sourced cacao).

Our story begins with love! On our honeymoon, we toured a chocolate farm in Kauai and learned how chocolate was grown, harvested, and fermented. Then we got to enjoy a chocolate tasting. We thought, why not make chocolate at home? We started in our home kitchen making chocolate for our loved ones for birthdays and holidays. Engineer-minded tech professional Kane rigged up machines and developed processes and super-taster social service secretary Rosie chose carefully researched cacao origins based on environmental and social justice principles and perfected flavors. 15 years later, our life circumstances drastically changed, so we decided to go pro and see if we could make our own employment sharing our chocolate with Marin and Sonoma Counties.

The process of making beans into bars is a true labor of love!

Attention to detail. Everything from our beautiful packaging to the lasting impression our flavors leave you with is meticulously thought out. Our chocolate is an experience!

This is a hard question for me to answer because so much of our inspiration is internal. For me it’s the process of translating feelings into flavors while honoring the intentions of those who grew our ingredients. For Kane it’s manifesting ideas, building helpful things to make the chocolate-making process easier, and creative problem solving.

Each origin’s cacao tells a story through the flavor of where it was grown and how it was handled and created into chocolate. Chewing the chocolate is like speed-reading through it, and letting it melt slowly in your mouth to allow the flavors to develop is truly studying it. You can enjoy it either way, but I recommend trying the latter method.

Most of all, we want people to feel happy!

Yes! We’ll be at the following events:

Barely two years in business, Cacao Regina has won multiple awards (Gold, Silver, Bronze) in several categories, including Best Dark Chocolate, Best Milk Chocolate, and Best Organic or Fair Trade Products.

Buy direct: Order from the Cacao Regina online shop (San Rafael pickup may be available).
Find them IRL: Look for their booth at these farmer’s markets or pick up bars at these retail locations.
Stay in the loop: It may be 2 a.m. and you want chocolate now, but the sensible move is to join the newsletter — future you will thank you when it’s time for stocking stuffers, Valentine’s treats, and birthday gifts.
Follow along: Catch Rosie’s behind-the-scenes moments on Instagram (watch as she wheels a full batch into the cool room!).
Wholesale & collabs: Run a shop or have an idea? They’d love to talk. Call or text Rosie: (650) 483-3574.

Latest events + reader picks. Double-check with venue for updates.

Friday 10/31

Saturday 11/1

Sunday 11/2

See more events here.

Thanks for reading,
Kim

Kim Neumann, Publisher