Learn
Making Our Chocolate
Two ingredients, twelve steps, zero shortcuts. Here is what happens between the pod and the bar.
Harvest and fermentation
At origin, ripe pods are opened by hand and the wet beans are fermented in wooden boxes for five to seven days, then dried slowly on raised beds. This is where most of a bar's flavour is actually made, which is why we pay for it properly.
Sorting and roasting
Beans arrive in jute sacks and are hand-sorted on tables in our factory, then roasted in small batches on a profile developed for each individual harvest. A roast that flatters Ecuador would flatten Tanzania.
Winnowing and grinding
We crack and winnow the shell away, then grind the nibs with unrefined cane sugar in stone melangers for two to three days until the particles are small enough to taste like silk rather than sand.
Ageing, tempering and hand wrapping
Chocolate rests in blocks for several weeks before it is tempered, moulded and wrapped by hand by the same team that made it, then stamped with the farmer's photograph.