A UNIQUE AND DEDICATED PROTOCOL: FROM BEAN TO CHOCOLATE
FERMENTATION AND ROASTING: TWO KEY STEPS
After planting our cacao trees, it took five years of growth before we could harvest. Once we had a sufficient harvest, we started to perfect the production process.
Fermentation is the first major step to develop the flavors that are intrinsic to the cacao beans.
FERMENTATION AND ROASTING
Developing the fermentation protocols took us a year of experimentation. We monitor temperature developments and the changes in pH value, both inside the beans and the white mass from the cacao pod. Along the process we make cut tests to assess the beans visually. On average, we ferment the beans for 5.2 days and the beans are turned 2 times in our boxes. Once the beans reach their best expression of flavors, the fermentation ends and we begin the drying process before roasting.
We had to invent our own approach to respect completely the pure flavours of cacao fruit. Roasting single variety beans enables a much lower and shorter roast than what can be done with mixed beans from seed-planted trees. We roast at temperatures about 20-30% lower than the industry and at half the time, carefully checking when the beans reach their optimal expression of flavours from the cacao fruit.
