Know-How

Selecting the fine cacao beans

Our sourcing experts travel the world to identify the best beans, sourced from the best terroirs and bought directly from growers themselves. Cultivated in a manner that is responsible with regard both to humans and the natural environment, our beans come from family plantations or small cooperatives that guarantee a fair income and well-balanced working conditions.

Roasting

We roast the beans in small batches to ensure that the duration and temperature are accurately adjusted to suit the particularities of each variety and each harvest. The extreme precision of our roasters enables us to maintain very low temperatures, thus preserving the richness of the original aromas.

Breaking & winnowing

The husks of the beans are delicately cracked in our cacao crusher before being separated from the kernels using an airflow technique. We repeat this operation four times for each batch to ensure that only the precious cacao kernels, called nibs, are retained. The more thorough the winnowing, the less bitter the chocolate bar.

Milling & Refining

The cacao nibs are slowly and gradually crushed by two granite mills. This is the stage at which alchemy becomes a factor. It takes several hours and thousands of turns for the nib to become a fragrant cacao liquor. During this delicate operation, the temperature increases progressively due to the friction of the beans against the stones.

Conching

Once refined, the cocoa liquor is stirred for several days. This slow and gentle process known as conching is also done using stones. During these long hours, cane sugar and cocoa butter are added little by little according to our recipes, so that they blend delicately, and that the mixture matures until it reaches an almost impalpable velvety smooth texture.

Tempering & moulding

Before being moulded into bars, the chocolate is reheated and then cooled before being reheated once again, according to a curve specific to each recipe. This stage, known as tempering, ensures that it is visually homogenous and pleasingly brittle in the mouth, while fostering optimal crystallisation.

Chocolate maturation

Just like a great wine, we leave the chocolate to mature for two weeks in our refrigerated cellar so that it stabilises and finishes crystallising. This maturation allows all the aromas to balance out and ripen before packaging the bars ready to leave our factory.

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