Theonista (n.) - Leaders of the chocolate revolution. The revolutionaries can often be heard chanting "Viva Cacao Organico!, Viva Cacao Calidad!" Considered a peace loving sect of the global food industry, the Theonistas are prone to Theobromine induced fits of laughter and hugging.Many people ask us where the name Theo comes from. Anyone who has been on our deliciously fascinating tour can tell you it comes from the Greek name of the Cacao tree - Theobroma Cacao, Food of the Gods. In another sense, Theo is all of us, the self-proclaimed Theonistas who put a little piece of our heart into the work we do here in the factory. Last October we began a series of interviews with team members, highlighting one Theonista each month in our newsletter. Here is a compendium of all the Theonistas of the Month thus far. Enjoy!!
Rachel | Mackenzie | Steve | Nathan | Dave | Jessie | Nicole
Nicole is a Theonista!
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What do you do at Theo?
I am one of the fabulous factory tour guides!
What is the most interesting thing about working at Theo?
Everything I have learned from the amazing people I work with. It is inspiring to hear our president and vice president speak, everyone in the office is supportive, the factory crew is a joy, the staff in the kitchen is always willing to teach me their tricks and my buddies down in the store always brighten my day.
What is your favorite Theo product?
I’m loving our Madagascar and Ghana origin bars right now, they get better and better with every batch!
What is your greatest passion in life (outside of chocolate)?
Working at Theo opened my eyes to the entire food system. I began to focus my environmental studies degree at the University of Washington on food. I was shocked at what I learned about the industrial food system but pleased to learn about the alternatives. My passion is to help create a more sustainable, local food system in Seattle.
What food would you be willing to drive all day for?
I would BIKE all day for anything my grandmas make: empanadas, pascualina, pasta frola...but they live in Buenos Aires, so that would be a long bike ride.
What’s your earliest chocolate experience?
Honestly, I can’t remember! After working at Theo I never looked at chocolate the same way. I have to say my favorite chocolate experiences all involve Theo chocolate, whether having late-night tasting with co-workers or celebrating the summer solstice with chocolate!
What’s your favorite eco-tip or eco-action?
I eat local. We are very lucky to have so much preserved farmland near Seattle and so many admirable farmers stewarding the land. We have farmers markets open all year round and many restaurants that source locally. I have even started preserving in the summer so that I can enjoy local produce like cherries, peppers, raspberries and peaches in the dead of winter! One of my co-workers jokes that I am the only 21-year old she knows with a food dehydrator.
Jessie is a Theonista!
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What do you do at Theo?
I am the Office Manager. I process all invoices, account payables, help customers with orders, answering phones, payroll, help anyone in the company as well as the customers who come into the store. I definitely have a variety of roles here at Theo. That's what makes my job so interesting - I do not do the same thing all the time.
What is the most interesting thing about working at Theo?
The people here are just like family to me, so it really makes the job fun. We can all laugh, cry, play and just be who we are here at Theo. I'm so glad that I'm a part of this wonderful company.
What is your favorite Theo product?
I have a lot of favorite flavors. My favorite bars include hazelnut crunch, coconut curry, bread, nib brittle, and Madagascar. In confections I love the lemon, orange thyme and vanilla caramels, pb & j, mint and many more. Sometimes it's just so hard to pick a flavor.
What is your greatest passion in life (outside of chocolate)?
My greatest passion is going sailing, motorcycling and doing needle work. My boyfriend and I have a 38 ft Erickson sail boat and he has a Honda Gold wing. We try and get out on both of them as often as we can. I really enjoy when we can just go sailing and not have a real destination.
What food would you be willing to drive all day for?
I would be willing to drive all day for really good Mexican food. I can eat Mexican food every day. I just love all the flavors that you get in Mexican food.
What's your earliest chocolate experience?
I thought my first experience with chocolate was when I was a child. Instead it was when I started working here at Theo! When I tasted the first chocolate that we made I was shocked. It was not what I expected chocolate to really taste like. The overwhelming chocolate flavor was just tremendous. Even with other flavors added the chocolate flavor shines through.
What's your favorite eco-tip or eco-action?
I have a small Shi Tzu at home who has to be alone all day, so she has been trained to use what they call "potty pads." In the last year I've found some earth friendly potty pads and now I use those so that they compost into good earth.
Dave is a Theonista!
What do you do at Theo?
I serve the masses through customer service, taking orders and pitching chocolate to the uninitiated.
What is the most interesting thing about working at Theo?
There is a real egalitarian sentiment here at Theo. There is a sincere and often expressed appreciation for work done in all quarters - from the factory floor to the administrative office to the confection kitchen and retail store. Feedback, opinions, new ideas and critiques are both accepted and requested by ultimate decision makers here who apply those observations to the growth of the company. The mutual respect results in a true feeling of camaraderie here. We all work hard but have lots of laughs too. That's interesting to me and rare.
Also, Fair Trade Certification and the values that Theo promotes are not something symbolic or vague to us who work here. There is a real understanding of these by all and a shared passion for the social responsibility inherent in them.
What is your favorite Theo product?
There's nothing quite like the 3400 Phinney Fig, Fennel & Almond dark chocolate bar.
What are you currently reading?
I'm reading "How Nonviolence Protects the State" by Peter Gelderloos. It is a critical analysis of protest tactics, when they are most strategic and how as a movement, activists are often neutralized by the limits of those tactics in times of great social crisis. The book is blowing my little mind.
What food would you be willing to drive all day for?
If they'd let me behind the wheel of a 1958 Pontiac Catalina, I'd drive for Seattle's Bamboo Garden for the Szechuan Eggplant.
What's your earliest chocolate experience?
My parents used to throw these late night parties at home and the guests typically crashed on our living room floor. My little sister and I seized on these opportunities to get up at the crack of dawn to tiptoe over the sleeping bodies, quietly making off with all the leftover peanut M&Ms we could carry back to our bedrooms.
What is your favorite Eco-Tip or Eco-Action?
If you are so moved, pass on your martial arts skills to cows and pigs so that they might effectively defend themselves.
Rachel is a Theonista! 
What do you do at Theo?
I'm not sure if they realize this yet, but Theo pays me to socialize, party, and eat chocolate! I give tours and work in the retail store, and sometimes host private events after hours, such as birthdays, benefits, concerts, even wine-tastings! And eat chocolate. A lot.
What is the most interesting thing about working at Theo?
Learning about chocolate - there is a whole world behind it! Most people have no idea chocolate comes from a fruit - else they would stop calling it junk food! - and don't know all of the harvesting, fermenting, roasting, conching, and more that it goes through before it can land on your palate.I love tempting - I mean, enabling people to eat chocolate because it is health food! Fiber, iron, magnesium, copper, potassium - I'm not kidding, read the nutrition facts on our Theo bars! I really geek-out on Mayan and Aztec history, on the molecular structure of cacao - Did you know chocolate is a natural antidepressant!? Theobromine, serotonin, phenylthylamine, tyramine, andandamide. Really, it's a benign love drug! No wonder Aztec kings would drink 50 cups before they would visit their harems! Sharing the Theo Chocolate Love with our customers, and with our farmers and the planet by being Organic and Fair Trade, is the best part of my job!
What is your favorite Theo product?
I'm very into the Ivory Coast direct origin Theo bar - earthy and woodsy, nutty with a hint cinnamon or even coconut sometimes, and a slight sourness - it tastes exactly like I would imagine Ivory Coast would taste like! I close my eyes and picture an exotic steaming jungle.But ultimately, it's the good kharma that makes it so delicious. While over half of the world's cacao supply comes from Ivory Coast, Theo is the first American company to source any Fair Trade beans from there. Ivory Coast has been in the throes of a civil conflict for years, and has born the brunt of scandal about forced labor and unfair working conditions. It hurts me to think that with other companies, there is so much suffering behind the chocolate people give to lovers and use to celebrate holidays. However, with our Theo Bar, I feel inspired that at least some economic stability is going to our farmers in the midst of everything. It gives me hope that if enough consumers take matters into their own hands by demanding Fair Trade, maybe there is hope for a fair economy in the Ivory Coast and everywhere.Who knew!? You can change the world just by eating chocolate!
What are you currently reading?
"The Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy
What food would you be willing to drive all day for?
Pho. I don't think I have a declining marginal utility for it. Last winter, I had on average 4 bowls of pho a week. Most Vietnamese restaurants in the U-District know me by name.
What's your earliest chocolate experience?
I have great memories of making chocolate chip cookies with my mother and two sisters after school, taking turns adding each ingredient, the smell that would waft through our house as they baked. In fact, sometimes I walk in to the factory when we are conching and the smell transports me back - not to a specific memory, but a powerful feeling of hominess hangs in the air. It's the best!
What is your favorite Eco-Tip or Eco-Action?
Recycled fashion! I buy almost all my clothes second hand. I feel better that they are not coming from a sweatshop or creating more pollution, and it forces me to have more creativity and individuality with what I wear. I'm all about St. Vincent de Paul and Salvation Army, where the proceeds go to programs to help get homeless people of the streets. Buffalo Exchange is great too!
Mackenzie is a Theonista!
What do you do at Theo?
I handle all of the orders that come from customers. That means if you don't own a store and you order some chocolate from us, I'm the one who makes sure it gets done. I also work in the store and give tours.
What is the most interesting thing about working at Theo?
That's a hard one. I think the most interesting thing about working at Theo is how much I love my job. I don't know too many people who look forward to going to work. I love the fact that every day I go to work knowing that I am helping make a positive difference in peoples' lives, and I am certain that I am not contributing to deterioration of our environment or the exploitation of human beings (it is truly guilt free chocolate!) Also, the wonderful customers. I've heard a lot of horror stories about customer service, but all my customers are so happy, I mean how angry can you be when you are eating chocolate? It's also the people I work with - they are amazing. Every day is so much fun and everyone is so caring and happy. And well, the free chocolate! I mean, wow, what more can you ask for than free chocolate? Forget everything else, it's all about the chocolate.
What is your favorite Theo product?
I can't actually talk about that. My favorite product is not on the shelves yet - it's top secret. I'm sorry, but wow is it amazing!
What is your greatest passion in life?
As a full time student who also has a job, it's hard for me to find time, much less think of outside passions. During the summer, I like to create period clothing from the 1860s and participate in Civil War reenactment. Don't laugh at me!!!
What food would you be willing to drive all day for?
When I was in 5th grade and living in Costa Rica, I went hiking in the jungle, and in a remote village some locals were selling all these amazing foods. I bought a huge multicolored sucker, and it was amazing. I tellyou I haven't forgotten the taste of that sucker and I don't think I ever will. If someone told me where I could find a sucker like that again, I would drive not just all day, but for months to get one.
What is your earliest chocolate experience?
When I was ten, I was super amazing at the pogo stick. I used to go to parks and ride my stick all up and down the play structures. In fact, I was so good at it, I used to set out a hat and people would put money in there for me. It was a really great way to make some extra cash, One day my sister andI went to the gas station to buy some candy, and there was a sale on some kind of chocolate bar, I forget which one. We went a little crazy and I ended up eating about twenty of them. After that, we went to the park so I could make some money from my pogo stick skills. Everything was going just fine until my stomach started to hurt from all the bouncing up and down, and you can probably imagine the rest. I'd have to say my first chocolate memory wasn't the best, It's a wonder I work with it today with that traumatic experience lurking in my past.
What's your favorite eco-action?
Put a brick or heavy object in the clean water tank of your toilet. it helps save water!
Steve is a Theonista!
What do you do at Theo?
I'm a chocolatier, which means I hand make the fillings inside your confections using granite table tops to temper the fillings to the perfect consistency. In other words, I make creamy and delicious slices of heaven, and each bite is accompanied by a chorus of cherub-like angels......I'm a confectionist-perfectionist!
What is the most interesting thing about working at Theo?
I would have to say, it's the people. I have developed some great friendships at Theo, and it's one of those rare work environments where there is a sense of family, and that what we do makes a difference in our community - and the world, for that matter.
What is your favorite Theo product?
I think that just choosing one is like choosing only one of your kids to love more....it makes the other chocolate sad! I like our single origin line of chocolate bars the best though. I love the distinctiveness of flavors, it's like tasting a country! My favorite single origin bar is the Madagascar.
What is your greatest passion in life (outside of chocolate)?
My greatest passion outside of work is music. I've played drums for about 17 years and have been in many bands and toured the country. It was also through my last band that I met the most wonderful person in my life, Crystal, who also works at Theo. How adorable is that!?
What food would you be willing to drive all day for?
Recently we took a vacation in California and Crystal took me to this amazing little bakery in her home town. It's the first time I ever had pan dulce and empenadas which are like fruit filled sweet bread that are to die for. I would drive all day for that. Which we did!
What's your earliest chocolate experience?
Like most people, my first chocolate experience was through that wonderful chap the Easter bunny. My mom got me a chocolate Easter bunny which I ate most of and wore the rest as facial decor. It is how I still maintain my youthful glow.
What's your favorite eco-tip or eco-action?
Use cloth bags at the store. It will help you avoid the avalanche of plastic bags that you end up stuffing in a cupboard, and possibly avoid serious neck or head trauma.
Nathan is a Theonista!
What do you do at Theo?
I am one of the cocoa roasters at Theo. We take raw cocoa beans and roast them in our 1937 German cast iron roaster until they have reached the pinnacle of their flavor development. This point is judged solely on tasting, which means we get the award for eating the most cocoa beans of any other employees at Theo.
What is the most interesting thing about working at Theo?
I sometimes forget how special it is that we are the only company in the U.S. that is currently making chocolate from Fair Trade and organic cocoa beans. It is a real privilege and source of pride to be a part of this team.
What is your favorite Theo product?
The Single Origin Ghana Bar. It's not only incredibly delicious but also extremely versatile as a baking chocolate.
What are you currently reading?
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I am looking for inspiration to be more mischievous.
What food would you be willing to drive all day for?
If France were accessible by car I would make the morning commute for fresh croissants - every day.
What's your earliest chocolate experience?
I was in Paris with my parents when I was about seven years old and I ordered chocolate mousse for dessert. The waiter brought the largest bowl of mousse I have ever seen to this day and left me a serving spoon and a bowl to help myself. No joke it was at least two and half gallons strong. I was in heaven.
What's your favorite eco-tip or eco-action?
I still pick plastic six-pack rings off of the ground and cut them up so birds won't get stuck in them; an unforgettable life lesson from Captain Planet.
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