Chocolate's Natural Flavors
Before I started making chocolate, I thought all chocolate tasted the same--like "chocolate." But that's not true. There is no single taste of chocolate.
The truth is, the world's best cacao beans can make chocolate with complex natural flavor. These flavors go far beyond the simple taste of the mass-market chocolate you'll find in most stores.
What can you expect from chocolate that starts with world-class cacao beans? The possibilities are endless, but in a word, complexity. Yes, you'll taste chocolate, but also exciting secondary notes of fruit, nuts, spices, and more--even without added flavorings.
This complexity makes the chocolate a great for pairing with your favorite drinks and snacks, like wine, beer, spirits, tea, coffee, and anything you'd find on a charcuterie board.
Making Flavorful Chocolate
When you start with great beans, although the process behind making incredible chocolate takes great care, it's simpler than you might think. In fact, the hardest step is the first one: finding the right cacao. How do I find it? Talented sourcing partners and lots of test batches.
One of many test batches.
Producing world-class cacao beans is not simple at all. Most importantly, it takes real investment in infrastructure where the cacao is grown. That's why I am happy to pay more for the cacao I use, and to buy directly from producers so that they don't lose out to intermediaries. It's the only way to keep high-quality chocolate available into the future.
When it comes to transforming this remarkable cacao and whole cane sugar into finished chocolate, I deliberately apply gentle processing techniques to create a finished product brimming with the natural character of the ingredients behind it.