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Deux Cranes

Japanese flavors shaped by French chocolate craft

Deux Cranes green matcha chocolate bar with traditional bamboo matcha whisk

Japan Meets French Chocolate Tradition

Deux Cranes is a modern interpretation of Japanese flavor and aesthetics through French chocolate craft. Founder Michiko Marron-Kibbey draws on ten childhood years in Japan, family roots around Iwakuni and Hiroshima, and the attentiveness she saw in markets, bento, and her grandmother’s kitchen. Those memories become California-made bars and bonbons flavored with matcha, hōjicha, sesame, kinako, miso, yuzu, shiso, saké, and shichimi. The name pairs “two” with cranes—a Japanese symbol of peace and long life—to express the meeting of Japanese sensibility and French technique.

Deux Cranes founder and head chocolatier Michiko Marron-Kibbey

Michiko Marron-Kibbey Marries Two Traditions

Fourth-generation Japanese American Michiko Marron-Kibbey grew up between Japan and the United States. After eight years working in education in Washington, D.C., she left in 2015 to pursue a childhood dream at Ferrandi, the Paris culinary school. She then worked at Mori Yoshida, a Franco-Japanese pastry and chocolate shop. Returning to the United States, she founded Deux Cranes in 2018 as a space where her Eastern and Western upbringings could meet. From Northern California, she leads a small team that translates memories of Japanese food, objects, and hospitality into contemporary chocolate.

Hands packaging Deux Cranes handcrafted chocolate bars

Stone-Ground Flavors, Handcrafted in California

Deux Cranes starts with Valrhona couverture from Tain-l’Hermitage, France, then stone-grinds Japanese ingredients such as kinako, black sesame, matcha, and hōjicha into the chocolate. Bars, bonbons, shortbreads, and caramels are handcrafted in California with close attention to flavor balance and geometry. In the matcha bar, earthy tea is softened by creamy white chocolate and sharpened by caramelized sesame crunch. The hōjicha bar layers roasted green tea’s smoky warmth with caramel. Small-batch handwork means natural variation is part of the finished piece rather than a defect.

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JAPAN 🇯🇵

Hōjicha Caramel Milk Chocolate Bar

$17
$17