Tour in the chocolate factory

Sourced from the farms in Kerala, cocoa beans go through multiple processes and extensive journey to become what is the world’s favourite, cheapest and tastiest dessert option — chololate bars. However, the road from bean to bar is a long one, and trying to explain the process to interested patrons, Devansh Asher, founder and partner of Pascati Chocolates, an artisan chocolate brand, is all set to conduct a bean to bar workshop in the city.

Loved by children and adults alike, the super-markets and grocery stores are always laden with varieties of chocolates. Despite the overwhelming options available, the process of making chocolate is not a child’s play. To explain the intricacies of chocolate making process, the connoisseur Devansh, is all set to take the participants through a step-by-step process. Talking about the workshop, he says, “So what we are going to do is, go over the process of bean to bar chocolate making and it is going to be a little bit more informative than practical. We are going to go through the history of cocoa itself; we’re going to talk about its origin; what the fermentation process involves; and eventually we’re going to discuss what bean-to-bar chocolate is. So we will explain the roasting process, the cracking, the winnowing, the refining that we do at our factory and ultimately how to mould it into a bar of chocolate.”

The sweet dessert, which is on the guilty pleasure list of most of the people, starts off in a pod that contains 40 to 60 beans. After some processing when the beans finally reach the chocolate makers, it’s at this crucial stage when they are roasted, that sets the flavour profile of the chocolate. “When we get the cocoa beans, we roast it after sorting them according to size. So you roast the cocoa beans at about 135-140°C, for about 30 to 35 minutes depending on the roast profile I want to put in the chocolate. Let’'s say, if I want notes of nuts or coffee, I'll have a longer roast, but if I want more fruity and subtle roast, I'll do a more milder roast,” reveals Devansh while explaining the roasting process.  

Devansh, who has been working with chocolates for about four years, likes to experiment with different flavours and textures. “We have lemon-ginger, saffron-pistachio, blueberry-walnut. There is orange segment hazelnut bar, which is also very popular. We have experimented a lot with flavours and spices,” he says with a smile.

Giving a little insight into what interesting facts people can learn about chocolate making, he goes on to reveal the difference between a pure chocolate and the mass-produced compound version. He says, “We use cocoa butter which melts at 31°C, whereas big chocolate companies put hydrogenated vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter. The hydrogenated vegetable fat melts at 41°C, so it’s easy to transport, but at 31°C, it is a very temperature sensitive product. Your internal body temperature is 37°C, so when you consume a bar of pure chocolate, it is instantly going to melt because your body temperature is warmer. But when you have a bar of compound chocolate made of hydrogenated vegetable fat, you'll have to chew the chocolate.”

Since the entire process of making chocolate takes more than 48 hours, a tasting session at the workshop is going to help bridge the time-gap. So what are the participants going to taste? “We are going to be tasting the product through the entire bean to bar process, weather it be an un-roasted bean or a roasted bean, or even cocoa nibs; we’ll be tasting 100% cocoa; we’ll be tasting what happens to the cocoa once sugar is added and we’ll be also tasting the 72% single origin chocolate bar,” adds Devansh.

The Pascati’s Bean to Bar Workshop will be held at Salt Water Café, Churchgate, today at 4 pm