Exploring the Land of Coffee inevitably leads us to the land of cocoa.
Our passion for taste and know-how inevitably leads us to chocolate.
Our commitment to the preservation of ecosystems and intelligent agriculture calls for wonderful encounters with cocoa producers who have so much in common with our coffee-growing friends, and who cultivate a magical product so close to, yet so different from, coffee.
Cocoa, originally from the Amazon rainforest, derives its flavours from the land from which it comes, its variety, its method of fermentation and drying. These flavors are contained in the cocoa bean, and it's the roasting process that brings them out. If we stopped there, the comparison with coffee would be confusing, but two additional stages are necessary to determine the taste and texture of what will become chocolate: conching and the percentage of sugar added to the cocoa paste obtained after conching.
So it was after being introduced to chocolate by our friends at Encuentro, being trained in chocolate-making, and visiting cocoa farms run by wonderful people that we decided to source cocoa as well during our coffee peregrinations, with two requirements in mind: to find the rare and the exceptional, therefore produced in small volumes with absolute respect for biodiversity, to offer the greatest and finest chocolates to our customers.
Chocolatier is a profession at least as demanding as roaster, and one that cannot be improvised. We naturally turned to our friends at Encuentro to see this project through. Pioneers of the “bean to bar” concept in France and Europe, Candice and Antoine agreed to join us in this new adventure. They have created a high-quality work tool in Lille, and possess the rare art of making chocolate without any inputs, just cocoa and sugar.
We open this new ball of enchanting aromas with cocoa beans produced in one of the best preserved (and most beautiful) places on the planet: Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. It was our friend Alejo Castro of Volcan Azul Estate, who put us on the trail of small-scale producers native to Osa, who have been growing cocoa in agroforestry for generations. They are located along what is becoming a corridor for the movement and protection of wild animals which, as a result of global warming, are moving up towards Panama to find fresh air and their means of subsistence. This Corridor project is the brainchild of the Castro family, who are particularly committed to protecting the flora and fauna of this peninsula.
A 70% chocolate with a gourmet profile, with notes of elderflower, chocolate cake and raisin. A rich, creamy chocolate with a long finish.
