The Process

INDUSTRY

In the past ten to fifteen years, there has been a movement within the chocolate world towards more pure chocolate - it is a move away from lower-quality chocolates that have given the “food of the gods" a bad rap and caused it to be associated primarily with"candy". 

The truth is that dark chocolate, as much as it may be a treat and a luxury, has health benefits and incredible taste profiles that should not necessarily be relegated to the candy aisle. As more and more people have taken interest in where their food comes from and what is in it, small-batch chocolate makers (and a few larger companies, too) have begun making darker chocolate, chocolate that allows the full flavor of the cocoa beans to be featured front and center. Craft chocolate (like craft beer, craft wine,or craft cheese) is a move towards more pure, more nutritious, and more delicious. If you're going to make craft chocolate, you have to start with great ingredients. Most importantly, you have to start with great cocoa beans. 

BEANS 

We believe that we start with one of the finest cocoa beans in the world: heirloom Arriba Nacional. We at Mindo Chocolate Makers take "bean-to-bar" to the extreme - we start our process as soon as our cocoa beans are harvested from trees in Ecuador. We work directly with a cooperative of organic farmers in Ecuador about 30 miles outside of our operation in Mindo. We purchase only the Nacional variety of cocoa beans--what is considered to be a fine-flavor, heirloom bean—and absolutely won't accept hybrid or diseased beans.

The majority of cacao trees in the world are hybrids designed to grow smaller and yield more fruit. Unfortunately, flavor wasn't one of the primary goals when hybrids were created. On the other hand, the Nacional variety that we use may not yield as much, but the beans have an incredibly complex flavor profile. What we like about the Nacional variety (in addition to its excellent flavor) is that it grows intermixed with other plants and trees that promote habitats for midge pollinators, birds, and other animals. Not only that, many of these magnificent trees are ancient -- they're trees that our farmers' parents or grandparents planted or harvested from. So, the farmers have a special connection to this variety and appreciate that we pay a premium for them. By paying two to three times the fair-trade price for cocoa beans, we've ensured that we receive only the best Nacional beans and encouraged the farmers to resist the hybrid and deforestation trend. 

We've been working with many of the same cacao farmers for the past five years. Working directly with the farmers has allowed us to share ideas and continually improve the processing of our cacao. As soon as the cacao is harvested, the fruit and beans within each pod need to be collected and fermented. We ferment the beans for 4-8 days in large cedar boxes, a process that relies upon natural yeast within the air to break down the sugars within the cacao fruit. After fermenting, the cocoa beans are dried in the sun on elevated drying beds for 10-20 days, depending on the weather. All of our beans are dried on long beds at the farmers' cooperative - a fact that you take for granted until you realize that much of the cacao in the world is dried on the ground or on the side of the road where gasoline and other pollutants can easily seep into the beans. After drying we roast the beans and winnow the thin shells away from the meaty part of the bean, referred to as cocoa 'nibs". Like coffee cocoa is roasted in order to caramelize the sugars and bring out rich flavor undertones. Loaded with antioxidants and wholesome fats, cocoa nibs are one of the healthiest foods you can possibly eat.  

  

 

We then ship the cocoa nibs and beans from Mindo to our facility in Dexter, Michigan. It's already been a long process up to this point, but we're just getting started. In Michigan, we select our most flavorful nibs for our finest and darkest batches. We like nibs that have a lot going on, since the complexity of the nibs will determine the complexity of the finished chocolate. We record the characteristics of every batch of chocolate that we make, and if you look through our records, you'll find all kinds of tasting notes on our nibs : banana, cherry, coffee, fruity, floral, roasted, peanut, red wine, woody,tangy, earthy - even whiskey! 

To put it simply, chocolate is made when you grind cocoa beans down. There are a number of ways to do this: we use a large stone grinder to make all of our chocolate. The grinder has two granite wheels that crush the nibs down to a silky-smooth consistency (or in the case of our rustic bars, to a crunchy, unrefined consistency). Grinding the nibs takes time. Unlike other machines that immediately pulverize the beans, our stone-grinder can take anywhere from 20 to 35 hours to get the chocolate to the consistency and flavor that we want. We keep our chocolate very pure, so the only other ingredient we add to the grinder is sugar (organic evaporated cane juice).  

 

 

Making chocolate would be a whole lot easier if you could simply pour the liquid chocolate out of the grinder into molds. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Like steel or glass, chocolate needs to be "tempered" before it's molded. Why? A few reasons : tempered chocolate is shiny and has a firm snap, will hold its shape for longer, and doesn't have those whitish, dusty streaks and spots that you might see on a piece of chocolate that has lost its temper. In order to get the chocolate in temper, it needs to be heated and cooled in a very specific fashion just before it's molded.  

All of our chocolate bars are carefully hand-wrapped, in biodegradable packaging. We give each product a final inspection to make sure the chocolate is in temper, blemish-free, and as beautiful as it can be before it reaches you. Making craft bean-to-bar chocolate is a long and difficult process and a lot of fun along the way. We think our final product is worth it. We hope you do, too. 

 

Our Ingredients 

We’re always grateful when someone takes the time to listen to our story. We know it’s a long story. But we also know that people care about where and who their food comes from. We’re proud of the fact that we’re intimately connected with the people who grow our cacao thousands of miles away. And while cacao is the most important ingredient we use, we source all of our other ingredients with the same commitment to responsibility, sustainability, and excellent flavor. Because we take the time to find high-quality, responsibly-produced ingredients, we like to share that info with you so that you can feel good about the whole chocolate bar.

Nacional Cocoa Beans : Mindo -- Ecuador. Organically-grown, direct trade cacao from the region surrounding Mindo, Ecuador. We currently buy from a single cooperative of farmers with whom we continually work to improve the growing, fermenting and drying processes. We are Bean to Bar Chocolate Makers.

Organic Evaporated Cane Juice : Because we're only using two ingredients in our pure chocolate, we have to make sure that the quality of our sugar lives up to the quality of our cacao. We use sugar that is less processed than traditional white sugars, the cane juice that we use has a light golden color. It's a beautiful sight to behold along with all the certification stamps on the outside of the bags. It is not washed with bone meal and it is vegan. 

Michigan Blueberries : Tabone Vineyards -- Traverse City, Michigan. It's difficult to find great dried blueberries. We're lucky to have found the Tabones, a great family who has been supplying us with great dried Traverse City blueberries for quite a while now. 

Michigan Cherries : North Star Organics -- Frankfort, Michigan. We love buying local. The dried cherries on our bars come from North Star Organics, a family-owned company that is committed to organic, sustainable methods. They carefully wash, sort, pit, pack and dry the fruit to ensure an extremely high quality product.

Celtic Sea Salt® : Selina Naturally®. Hand-harvested and Kosher, Celtic Sea Salt® is certified to be free from pesticides, herbicides, and harmful chemicals. 

Candied Orange Peels : We make our candied orange peels in house from organic oranges. Since we’re using the rind of the orange, it’s especially important that we choose oranges that are pesticide and spray-free. We’ve been known to empty the Valencia orange shelves of our local food-cooperative every now and then.

Hazelnuts : Trufflebert Farms -- Eugene, Oregon. From the moment we first called Trufflebert Farms to ask for a sample of their hazelnuts, we knew we liked them. They had a story similar to ours -- they're people who are passionate about what they do and are never willing to compromise the quality of their products. Since 1983, they've been using natural fertilizers and reworking the fallen leaves back into the soil every year. We liked their story so much that we didn't even bother with the sample - we placed our first order and have been incredibly happy with these huge, delicious hazelnuts ever since.

Almonds : Baugher Ranch -- Orland, California. We like as unprocessed as possible. That’s why we bought into what Baugher Ranch is doing in Northern California. Due to federal regulations put in place in 2007, all California-grown, commercially sold almonds in the US were required to be pasteurized. Baugher Ranch chose the least intrusive thermal heat pasteurization option in order to preserve the great taste and nutrients in these beauties.

Espresso : Mindo Chocolate Makers -- Dexter, Michigan. We roast and grind all of the coffee that we use on our coffee toffee bars. Our operation in Ecuador (El Quetzal de Mindo) originally began as a coffee shop; over the years, we've forged a relationship with Olger, an Ecuadorian farmer who supplies us the high-quality Tipica coffee that we roast in Dexter.

Ginger : Visit our restaurant in Ecuador and you’ll understand how much we love ginger. It grows abundantly on our organic farm and we use it in everything from ginger beer, ginger ale, crystallized ginger, ginger tea, to ginger syrup. Intense flavor and a nice kick of heat. 

Hot Pepper : Grown on our organic farm in Ecuador, the hot peppers that we use in our Macho Rustic bar are a small red pepper that packs quite a punch. After drying it, we chop it up, grind it down and garnish the back of our bars.

Milk Powder : We use Humboldt’s organic milk powder in our white and milk chocolate. Great quality - yields a very pure and smooth white chocolate.

Butter : We use local butter from Calder Dairy in our brownies. It makes all the difference in the world in flavor.

Eggs : Local, free-range, hormone-free, and organic whenever possible