Journal · Chocolate
Bean to bar, step by step
From a sack of fermented cacao to a tempered bar, here is what happens in a chocolate workshop.
“Bean to bar” means a chocolate maker starts with cacao beans rather than buying ready-made chocolate to melt and remold. It is slower, and it gives the maker control over every step that shapes the flavor. Here is the path a bean takes.
1. Sort
Beans arrive fermented and dried, in sacks. They are sorted by hand or machine to remove stones, broken beans, flat beans and anything that does not belong. A single bad bean can taint a batch, so this step is unglamorous and essential.
2. Roast
Roasting develops aroma and drives off harsh, volatile acids. Makers adjust time and temperature for each origin: a delicate, fruity cacao might get a gentle roast, while a heavier bean can take more heat. Roasting is where a maker first decides what the bar will taste like.
3. Crack and winnow
The roasted beans are cracked into pieces, and a stream of air carries away the light, papery shells. What remains are cacao nibs, the part that becomes chocolate.
4. Grind and refine
Nibs are ground into a thick paste called cacao liquor; despite the name, there is no alcohol. Sugar is added for most bars, along with extra cocoa butter for some, and the mixture is refined, often for a day or more, until the particles are too small for the tongue to detect.
The percentage on a bar is the share of it that came from the cacao bean.
5. Conch and age
Conching keeps the chocolate moving and warm, smoothing the texture and letting more volatile flavors escape. Many makers then rest the chocolate in blocks for weeks so the flavor can settle.
6. Temper and mold
Cocoa butter can crystallize in several forms, and only one gives a bar its shine and clean snap. Tempering is the careful heating, cooling and gentle reheating that encourages that form. The tempered chocolate is poured into molds, cooled and wrapped.
Reading the label
The percentage on a bar is the share of it that came from the cacao bean, nibs and any added cocoa butter combined. The rest is mostly sugar, and milk in a milk chocolate. A higher number means more cacao and less sugar, not necessarily more quality. A 70% bar from well-fermented beans can be far more interesting than an 85% bar from poor ones.
Chocojava plans to make its single-origin and seasonal bars in-house, with a planned production facility in Dallas. Our first cafes open in 2027.
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