Bean to bar, from handwork to automation

摘要

My first experience with making chocolate from cocoa involved an electric oven, a heavy vodka bottle, a blowdryer and a juicer. I would put the beans in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast them in the oven. After the roast I would use the base of the bottle to crush the beans (of course I have learnt since not to use glass) then take the nibs by the handful and use the blowdryer at a distance to blow off the husk. I would then put the nibs into the juicer to grind them into a semi-liquid state, mix in some fine grained sugar and drop the mixture into little puddles. Little puddles of very sandy chocolate.This was a very exciting time.