Our Cocoa

Our Cocoa

Inside each cocoa pod lies 5 rows of beans surrounded by the juiciest and sweetest fruit. Cocoa farmers ferment the beans, developing the juice into vinegar and the bean fibre to be broken down and preserved before drying for shipment.

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The cocoa fruit and bean itself bears very little resemblance to the chocolate we are often more familiar with. I started as an avid chocolate lover who was keen to learn and understand how this flavour was created.

The process is still quite magical and made more challenging to fully understand as we are so far away from the communities that cultivate the cocoa we work with.

Today the chocolate industry is so large and is geared up to deliver to consumers with brands around the globe that have an expectation of flavour and consistency.

Our journey has taken us to cocoa communities that are connected through our love of chocolate as we try to better understand how the chocolate we make can continually deliver better.

Visiting a cocoa farm there is often very little trace of the roasted cocoa aroma that we anticipate with chocolate. The farms are colourful, full of floral and fruity flavours and very few hints of the brown colour of chocolate. I remember my first visit and realising that no 2 trees were the same, no 2 pods were the same and certainly no 2 beans were the same.

The cocoa farmers diligently harvest the cocoa from the trees, ensuring that the tree can continue to produce flowers and fruit. Each pod is cut open to reveal the phenomenally sweet and juicy fruit inside surrounding each of the cocoa beans nestled within.

Each farmer needs sufficient wet cocoa or “Wet Baba” for the fermentation process. As cocoa farms are often located in remote rural environments and the trees produce fruit all-year round it is often necessary for farmers to work together in co-operatives where they support each other with tasks or by fermenting beans together to maintain consistency and share access to the right equipment.

Fermentation

The beans are often piled into banana leaf lined boxes for the fermentation process to take place. The process takes about a week depending upon intended flavours and the environment. During this process natural yeasts and bacteria eat the sugars in the cocoa fruit surrounding the beans turning it to alcohol. This process kills the cocoa bean and prevents it from sprouting into a cocoa tree.

The beans are moved around and new bacteria is introduced, these ones eat the alcohol and transform it into vinegars like acetic and citric acid. The germ is the part responsible for making another cocoa tree and is the bean’s connection to the central stalk of the cocoa pod. The fermentation process prevents germination from taking place, allowing these juices and vinegars to soak into the bean. The cocoa beans are essentially pickled in their own juices.

To be transported the beans must be dried out, often in the sun, however the tropical nature of the cocoa growing regions of the world makes rain likely and causes challenges for cocoa farmers. In some parts of the world the cocoa is dried using wood fires contributing a unique set of flavours in cocoa from geographies like Papua New Guinea and Cameroon.

This process happens long before our cocoa arrives in our manufactory. We are dependent on farmers, communities and traders around the world that help us make these connections in a way that we can learn and celebrate everyone that helps us make our chocolate. This is why we feel it's important to pay our farmers for the quality and attention to detail that they do on our behalf.

Explore more about our chocolate making process
Learn about Cocoa Cultivation