What is Bean to Bar Chocolate?
There are a lot of confusing terms that are being used by chocolate makers and chocolatiers alike such as;Bean to Bar, Artisan Chocolate, Small Batch Chocolate, Craft Chocolate, but what do all they mean?
Chocolatiers also known as confectioners, purchase couverture chocolate (couverture chocolate is a higher quality chocolate containing more than 32% cocoa butter) made by other companies, then melt that chocolate and use it to make confections such as pralines, bonbons, truffles, ganaches amongst many other delicious treats. It takes a lot of skill and perseverance to be good at it and we do not regard what they do to be inferior in any way, it’s merely different.
Chocolate Makers are those of us who make chocolate from scratch, from the cocoa beans. The terms Bean to bar, craft chocolate, artisan chocolate all fall under this category. Put simply, the process of making chocolate from the cocoa bean begins with; sourcing the raw beans, then the beans need to be roasted, cracked, winnowed (removing the husk), and ground into chocolate and refined. At ALOUSS we are dedicated to the bean to bar process and no shortcuts are taken. Because this process is done on a very small scale, we can provide a much higher level of quality that is impossible at the larger, commercial scale. For this reason we cannot compete on price with supermarket chocolate.