Edible Food Find: Sueños Heirloom Chocolate
Photos by Michael Piazza
Lori Shapiro often finds herself working in the gardens around her Watertown home when “inspiration strikes.”
It’s in the flowers she later dries and presses, the mint leaves she isn’t so sure about. The inquisitive biologist side of her past life comes out, ready to hand off to the present-day “Dr. Chocolate” running Sueños Heirloom Chocolate out of her bustling basement space.
“I wanted to see if you could still get flavor from the mint leaf itself,” Shapiro says over the gentle whir of a grinder in the background, recalling one of her experiments and explaining her dedication to using “things from our environment that get overlooked.”
A PhD-holding biologist for most of her career, Shapiro shifted from science to chocolate in 2020, but her first exposure to the area from which she sources her single-origin heirloom Ecuadorian ‘Nacional’ cacao dates back two decades to when she lived on such a farm during a fellowship while in pursuit of a certificate in international agriculture.
She went back to the Ecuadorian farmers she met, finding a way to directly export their cacao to her and avoid the colossal third-party fees levied by middlemen. The independent family farmers in Esmeraldas ship nearly all of their lightly roasted harvest to Shapiro twice yearly, going through customs and a legally required import broker who she’s never met in real life. From there, Shapiro operates in her basement space about the size of a bedroom. She sets her own hours down there, save for the midnight curfew suggested by her husband, Ryan terMeulen. Easter time, while this interview took place, is especially busy.
Shapiro’s products, which she wholesales and vends at local markets, contain just two base
ingredients: cacao and sugar. The infectious aroma of the 75% dark or fully unsweetened chocolate persists as you descend the stairs into the basement.
“My style is minimally processed,” Shapiro says. “It’s part of the fine flavor market, which is really small. I try to do as little as possible.”
Her top sellers were intended as seasonal specials: Chocolate with dried oranges first debuted around Christmas in 2020 and dried raspberry a few years later. Shapiro experiments with wild-foraged complements like hickory and black walnuts, and is always looking for the next-best ingredient to add to her chocolate. She also grows ground cherries and chilis, and cures her lavender flowers and balsam fir needles—which “taste surprisingly good with chocolate”—in sugar on shelves surrounding her central wooden table.
The business will likely be Shapiro’s career for the long haul, though expanding out of her basement is unlikely. It’s not about blowing up, and she “can’t beat the commute,” she muses. It’s also nondescript, with no signage and below ground on an otherwise residential street sandwiched between two main thoroughfares.
“This is a specialty thing,” Shapiro says. “The point isn’t to be bigger.”
Every July, Shapiro packs her bags for a multi-week trip to Ecuador with all of the essentials and a unique twist: as much of her Sueños Heirloom Chocolate as she can carry, to give away as gifts.
Visiting the family farms she works with, the people featured in a framed photo she proudly displays in her workspace, highlights her summer.
In a global consumer market that so often resembles a one-way, dead-end street, she prioritizes ethics in her small-batch, vegan dark chocolate operation. Original ingredient producers rarely see the results of their underappreciated (and often underpaid) hard work.
“It’s the best gift I’ve ever given,” she says.
This story appeared in the Fall 2026 issue.
