A popular chocolate store in Baltimore is continuing to delight its customers with irresistible treats in an inspiring environment. Jinji Fraser, who opened Jinji Chocolate in 2012 with her father, has been providing mouth-watering dairy- and gluten-free chocolate which is made of cacao harvested by hand.
The vibrant shop, approved by Blavity’s Off the Shelves, is found at a location in the Baltimore neighborhood of Waverly and is decorated with bright lights and handwritten cards that describe the ingredients of the treats.
Fraser feels gratified when she sees her customers feeling comfortable in the shop.
“I want people to feel like it’s a home space for them and be proud of it,” Fraser told the Baltimore Beat. “I want people to have their families come this holiday season and be like, ‘I can’t wait to show you this chocolate shop that moved in.'”
The other key for Fraser is to tell a story through her products. According to the shop’s website, the treats are designed to evoke “a specific memory, an event or an emotion.”
“We work with that moment until we can taste it,” the Jinji Chocolate website states. “Then, the crafting of our next piece of chocolate starts. We select the purest ingredients we can find to tell our stories.”
The team works with local farmers to meet its goals and to make the treats as delicious as possible.
“In doing so, a community is created amongst us, where through these flavor profiles we understand one another’s personal experiences and collective visions,” the website states.
The Jinji Chocolate website features various stories which relate life stories to specific flavors. In one story, Fraser writes about the challenge of finding self-love after losing love from somebody else.
“Even as the ghosts of love lost and love passed haunt us along the way, the hike back to ourselves is indeed the most (the only) essential work of our lifetime,” she writes.
Fraser relates her sentiments to the flavors of “tahini white chocolate, accompanied by hints of black pepper and tobacco, finished with local citrus and poppyseed | Enrobed, gold garnish.”
In an article she wrote for Eater in 2020, Fraser said her dedication to making chocolate is a tribute to the people who came before her. The Baltimore entrepreneur said she found inspiration when she learned that her ancestors owned a land near Georgia which was known for producing cacao.
“Our family land signified an ancestral connection to the greater sacred cacao story, which I suddenly found myself belonging to, creating a new grounding in my career,” Fraser wrote. “No longer was my work a radical dissent from the mainstream. It was now an homage to all who had come before me, passed down from generations ago through my DNA, and into my hands.”
