A sweet healthy surprise in Baltimore

by Millaray Valenzuela
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer

The words healthy and sweet usually don’t go together in the same sentence — unless you’re talking about the chocolates made at a tiny shop inside the Belvedere Square Market in North Baltimore.

From its quaint location at 529 E. Belvedere Ave., Pure Chocolates by Jinji sells vegan, dairy free, gluten free, and raw chocolate, with flavors such as Sweet Cinnamon, Marshmallow, Salty Caramel Fudge, and many more. It’s a family business co-owned by Jinji Fraser and her father, Guy.

“In my opinion, she has the best chocolate in the city,” said Jim Nicewonger, a customer at Belvedere Square. “You can tell how much care goes into making the chocolate; it’s the best chocolate you will ever eat.”

Father and daughter began making chocolate in 2012 at their home. Jinji said she has always been interested in holistic health so she decided to blend her interests, using chocolate as a vehicle to help people improve on managing their weight and glucose intake while enjoying the food. At first, the two only made chocolate bars mainly for family and friends who noticed improvements in the health of their hair and skin, as well as their energy level and vitality.

Chocolate is high in antioxidant, said Guy, explaining that people started buying the bars because they saw and experienced the health benefits.

“Because we don’t use any dairy in our products, we don’t really have a limitation on shelf life, that’s one reason that it makes us so special,” Guy said.

Research shows that the average life of an unopened and well preserved dark chocolate bar is about two to four months in a pantry and about four to six months in a refrigerator.

Guy said that all of the chocolate is raw, which means it’s never heated above 105 degrees. In other words, the product is not compromised by high heat production, he said. A lot of commercial chocolate is boiled and cooled quickly, which can result in a loss of potency and nutritional value. Then the chocolatier adds chemical ingredients to compromise for the losses, he said.

Pure Chocolates by Jinji could be considered the baby of local Chocolate and candy stores in Charm City. Wockenfuss Candies is a family-owned retailer established in 1915. Rheb’s Homemade Candies represents a fourth generation of candy makers that started in 1917.

Pure Chocolates by Jinji’s different approach draws customers, they said.

“As the taste of what we were doing got out, more and more people started enjoying it,” said Guy. “We were invited to do a couple of weddings and farmers markets.”

Jinji was born in Germany when her father managed military construction projects around the world. She grew up in Baltimore. Early in her career, she teamed up with Under Armor for community programs aimed at educating inner city school children about nutrition and healthy living. Guy’s work for the government primarily focused on children’s programs.

“Our backgrounds came together in a very unexpected way,” Guy said.

What also makes Jinji’s chocolate unique is that in the shop’s crammed 80 square feet, she offers “Cacao Crossing” as a monthly subscription program. “Cacao Crossing” is an ancient art of storytelling, she said. Jinji has traveled to different places around the world, focusing on different cacao growing regions. While she harvested ingredients, processes and recipes, she also collected stories about her journey that are now included in exclusive boxes of chocolate.

“Storytelling is such a powerful way of communicating, especially when you have to address people who’re very varied,” she said. ”That could mean it could be a young child who is nonverbal or a senior citizen who has limited possibility to read.”

Jinji said she also is driven by economic concerns.

“Since the beginning, the priority has been maintaining a high level of sensitivity to the farmers who grow and harvest the cacao, and to the earth that yields the fruits. Along with local, seasonally selected ingredients,” she said on the store’s website.

The business moved from the house to Belvedere Square Market in 2014 when Jinji was offered a spot as a pop up shop. That means the business owners locate without any commitments or contracts. However, after a month, Pure Chocolate by Jinji had an official location.

“They could see we were enjoying it, and that people were responding to what we were doing,” Guy said.

Steven Pham, a culinarian and first time patron at Jinji’s, vouched for their claims: “Their passion translates into their product and with such a small space it is impressive with what they produce.”

“We don’t have any magic here,” Guy insisted. “It’s only our chocolate and our hearts that are really invested in making a fine product.”