Our Chocolate Making Process
Summary
We craft our chocolate with care and intention, starting with sustainably sourced cacao beans from growers dedicated to biodiversity and community. Drawing inspiration from slower European conching methods blended with a modern American approach, we preserve the unique flavors of each origin, allowing the natural richness of the cacao to shine. Every step of the process, from roasting to refining, reflects our commitment to quality and simplicity, resulting in chocolate as exceptional as the places it comes from. Â
Our bean to bar process starts with sourcing ultra high-quality cacao. We do a very light roast in order to retain as much of the natural flavor of our cacao.
The essential component of the cocoa bean, the nib, is encased in a brittle shell. Our winnowing machine lightly cracks each bean and uses airflow to separate the shell from the nibs.
We use a steel gristmill to grind our cocoa nibs into a chocolate paste. Then we add that chocolate paste, along with organic cane sugar, to our granite stone melangeurs.
After pre-refining and mixing, we send our chocolate through our vintage three roll mill refiner. The roll mill is the best method for uniformly grinding cocoa and sugar particles down to 10-15 microns.
Every batch of chocolate is mixed and refined for 72 hours in our 1915 longitudinal conche. This process polishes the microscopic cocoa particles and develops the finished chocolate flavor through heat and aeration.
Tempering is what gives chocolate its pleasant shine and snap. We temper the chocolate before we deposit it into molds, add inclusions if necessary, and then cool it.
Each chocolate bar is placed inside the recyclable sleeve and sealed for freshness. We stamp our packaging with the harvest year, batch number and best by date. When the package is sealed, the whole bean to bar process is finished!
