Meet the maker
9th & Larkin
About 9th & Larkin
Established in 2017, 9th & Larkin was born after Brian & Lan, chocolate lovers and all round food-enthusiasts, started making chocolate in their kitchen at home in San Francisco. The pair named their chocolate endeavour after two streets in San Francisco – back when Brian and Lan were dating, Lan lived on Larkin Street and Brian on 9th, so the name is very close to their hearts.
Brian & Lan’s mission is to make extremely good chocolate which sparks joy in those who buy, and taste it. It is important to the pair that their chocolate is packaged in a way that when people buy it, it feels like a gift to themselves – they’ve worked with a designer in the UK for their packaging, which is created by painting a cacao pod, rolling it on paper, and then transferring it to the final wrapper using screen-printing.
How they became makers…
Engineer and analyst, Brian & Lan, started their chocolate-making journey in their kitchen in San Francisco in 2017. Neither Brian nor Lan have backgrounds in chocolate, but they’ve always appreciated good food, loved small batch handcrafted products, and adored cooking. One day, the pair was feeling adventurous and tried making chocolate from scratch in their own kitchen at home – thus, 9th and Larkin was born.
The company is just Brian & Lan; since 9th & Larkin was founded, Lan has left her day job to become a full-time chocolate maker, and Brian is a chocolate maker on the weekends and holidays. The pair rely mainly on word-of-mouth for their marketing strategy – people simply try their chocolate, and recommend it to other people.
9th & Larkin’s Sourcing
9th & Larkin source their cacao beans through Meridian Cacao and Uncommon Cacao, who work directly with farmers and cooperatives. The beans are then brought to the US, where they’re accessible to small makers, such as 9th & Larkin, to use.
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