Peru to Montreal: Qantu’s Maple & Maras Fleur de Sel Bar Tells a Story of Love in Two Lands
By David Nilsen
The climates and terrains of Cusco, Peru, and Montreal, Quebec, are about as different from each other as can be, but a bean to bar chocolate company has brought these two places together in poignant and delicious ways.
“Elfi and I met in 2007 in Cusco, Peru,” explains Maxime Simard, who co-founded Montreal’s Qantu Chocolat in 2016 with his wife, Elfi Maldonado. “Since the first moment we met, it was love at first sight.”
The love story between Maxime and Elfi is like something from a heartwarming romantic comedy. Maxime was vacationing in Peru in 2008 and met Elfi. The pair hit it off instantly, and it wasn’t long before Maxime moved to Peru so the pair could be together. Eventually they moved back to Quebec. They planned to open some kind of culinary business together, and fell in love with bean to bar chocolate. Qantu Chocolat was born, and brings together the flavors of each partner’s homeland.
“Maxime has the point of view of the Canadian people,” says Elfi. “My palate is Peruvian.”
Qantu makes a range of both single origin and inclusion bars, all made with Peruvian cacao. One of their most popular bars is their Maple & Maras Fleur de Sel bar, a 60% dark chocolate made with the maple sugar so iconic to Canadian culture and fleur de sel from Maras, a salt mine near Cusco, Peru. This one bar tells much of the story of how these two individuals found each other.
Sugar and Salt
When they created their maple bar, Maxime and Elfi didn’t just want to pay homage to both of their cultures, but to their own flavor preferences as well.
“I’m a bit more sweet, she likes things with a bit of salt,” says Maxime. “The salt is from Maras, a salt mine in Peru, from near Cusco as well. For us, it’s one place that we remember our love when we first met and had our first moments together. When we met, Elfi was going to Cusco to see Machu Picchu for the first time. She passed through that mine of salt and so did I. After that, when I was in Peru for a year and a half, we went together to see the mine. It looked like winter because it’s on the side of a mountain and it’s all white.”
The Maras salt mine is a patchwork of over 6,000 salt ponds carved by the Incas, and have been in operation for over 500 years. From a distance, they look like snow cover on the otherwise green and brown mountain side.
These delicate salt crystals in their bar anchor the pair to their past, to their very first moments. The maple tells their story as they journeyed to their new life in Canada, the land of the maple leaf.
“Maple is our present,” says Elfi. “Maple is Canada, our present, our home.”
Rather than having bold flavors compete with each other, they want to use the overall flavor profile of a bar to highlight a main ingredient. In the case of this sweet and salty bar, maple takes the spotlight while the fleur de sel provides a subtle contrast with pops of bright saltiness that dissolve and disappear.
“When we develop a bar, we have to decide, who is the star?” explains Elfi. “In this bar we wanted the star to be the maple. Chuncho cacao is very nutty, but you also have some spices like cinnamon, a little bit of caramel. These are beans that remember fall here, when fall is something spicy. It’s perfect for maple.”
Great chocolate starts with great cacao, and Qantu sources all of its cacao directly from Elfi’s home country, including the Chuncho beans for their maple bar.
“A hundred percent of our cacao is bought directly from cooperatives,” says Maxime. “I think it gives us an advantage on the level of quality because when we go there, we select the beans ourselves.”
Chuncho is just one of the unique cacao origins within the country that Qantu is highlighting in their bars, including Bagua, Chaska, and Gran Blanco.
“Our mission is to preserve and promote the heirloom cacao from Peru,” says Elfi. “People talk about being Fair Trade, but not about the cacao varieties in danger.”
In the maple bar, the pair says the Chuncho origin is a natural companion to the familiar, cozy flavors of their favorite sugar.
“The Chuncho is comfortable when you are sitting in front of a fire in winter, when you’re quiet and calm,” reflects Maxime. “The maple is very comforting. It’s our most comforting bar.”
It’s also their best-seller, and helps to tell a beautiful narrative about its makers. When asked what story the Maple & Maras Fleur de Sel bar is telling, Elfi doesn’t hesitate.
“Our love.”
You can order Qantu’s Maple & Maras Fleur de Sel bar, as well as the rest of their single origin and inclusion bars, at their website.