Craft
From bean to bar.
Five steps, about seven weeks. Four of them happen right here in the warehouse.
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01 · Fermenting
Six days under banana leaves.
6 days
With our partners in Madagascar, Peru, Tanzania and Ecuador, the beans ferment in wooden boxes. This is where flavour begins – long before a bean ever sees Hamburg.
Cocoa beans fermenting under banana leaves in a wooden box
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02 · Roasting
Every origin has its own curve.
125 °C
We roast in small drums, usually for 20 to 30 minutes. Too hot and the fruit is gone. Too short and the depth is missing.
Freshly roasted cocoa beans, some cracked open
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03 · Conching
Three days of granite.
72 hrs
Cracked, winnowed and then ground between granite rollers until the mass turns silky and every unwanted note of acidity has drifted off.
Granite rollers turning through liquid chocolate
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04 · Tempering
The snap is no accident.
31 °C
Melt to 50, cool to 27, back up to 31 degrees. That is how stable crystals form – for shine, snap and melt.
Form V – the only crystal form with shine and snap. Liquid chocolate being tempered on marble
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05 · Resting
Four weeks of quiet.
4 weeks
Before a bar leaves the warehouse, it gets to rest. Then we wrap it by hand – in the contour lines of its origin.
Hands wrapping a bar in paper printed with contour lines
Four origins, one tasting card.
See the tasting set
