Why We Didn't Know About Craft Chocolate - Part Three of Three

We all have our comfort zones.

• Pulling on a favorite jumper
• Sitting down with a steaming hot cup of something
• Hiking through a local park and taking in that fresh air.

It’s that feeling of familiarity that keeps us coming back. Familiarity brings us that feeling of comfort.

The same could be said for food! Food has a way of flooding your brain with comforting memories. Nothing could ever beat your family’s home cooked meal, and having a bite of something you’ve grown up with takes you right back to that feel good moment.

But what happens when fast food gives us that feeling of comfort?

This one is a little controversial. But it has a wholesome ending (we promise!)

And it’s a big one, so to warm us up:

We explain junk and fast food as [anything that keeps you uncontrollably coming back for more.]

Can we stop eating it when we want to? If not, it’s most likely junk.

Junk food is intended to keep us coming back bite after bite. It’s a mix of addictive dopamine hits, sugar highs and excessive fats and salts. You know, all of that “good stuff”.

With this in mind, our third and (for now) final reason – on why we didn’t know about craft chocolate – lies in the fast food industry.

We’ve been blown away by a hurricane of fast food for decades, and not necessarily junk food where you say the words and hey presto you have your meal. But even:

• just add hot water foods!
• open up a can foods!
• and microwavable foods!

These meals tend to be loaded with sugars, salts, additives and fats.

They’re addictively delicious.

And they always taste the same. ALWAYS.

And THAT’s where the comfort factor kicks in. Right here: It tastes the same, it feels familiar, plus it chemically hits that dopamine high and so we want MORE.

(*exhales*)

So why does this affect how much we know about craft chocolate?

A lot of what we eat revolves around this fast food market. And because it tastes the same every time, we might not give these foods much attention while we’re eating it.

Chocolate has, understandably, fallen into this category of fast food. It could be:

• a peel off a wrapper food!

It’s eaten quickly, without too much thought, because in the case of “fast chocolate” it always tastes the same and there’s no real need to think about it.

Since the 1800’s, commercial chocolate has ticked these boxes:

• It’s highly processed chocolate filled with sugars, fats and additives that make it tasty (but addictive).
• It has tasted the same for as long as we can remember, creating that comforting feeling.
• The beans are processed in bulk. Commercial chocolate is good at making a consistent product out of inconsistent beans, and the result of this is an unpleasant final flavor.
• This means we instinctively reach for a new piece to go back to that first bite of sweet, sugary goodness.
• See the cycle?

Because Bean to Bar Makers honor the cocoa beans, they create chocolate that tastes better and is much less addictive.

It tastes good until the very end which means you can stop at one piece.

It IS possible to walk away.

Eating bean to bar chocolate is comforting, but per our very simple definition – it’s not junk.

So we did a little digging to figure out why.

We compared the ingredients of:

• nine milk chocolate bars made by leading grocery store brands against
• five milk chocolate bars made by bean to bar makers.

We wanted to get an idea of what they were made of, to see what keeps us coming back for more. And we’ll go deeper on this soon – but for now, here’s what we found from these 14 bars alone:

We expected to see a bunch of miscellaneous ingredients in the average commercial chocolate bar.

What we (naively) didn’t expect was the huge difference in cocoa percentage. Bean to bar milk chocolate had almost twice as much cocoa (47% vs 28%)! So we’re actually getting more cocoa from the bean to bar chocolate makers per square.

What we also loved was that each of the bean to bar milk chocolate bars listed the farm their cocoa beans came from. (One of the commercial bars did list “Ghana” as their origin… but it’s a pretty big country and one of the largest cocoa producing countries.)

Another key difference between comfort chocolate and fast chocolate is how the beans are harvested and roasted.

Bean to bar makers batch roast their beans at their best suited temperature to create the best flavour. They also work WITH the cacao farmers, who are given the time and money to properly harvest and ferment the beans before they pass them on.

Comparing this to commercial chocolate:

• The beans themselves are not…. the best. Commercial chocolate makers rely on a particular variety of the cacao tree that produces high volumes of big beans. These beans are also low in flavour and they aren’t well harvested because the farmers are not given the means to do so.
• To overcome this, the commercial makers roast the low quality, poorly harvested beans in bulk.
• Bulk roasting by commercial makers is almost always at a higher temperature which strips away those inbuilt flavors (the good and the bad).
• Commercial makers then need to include flavorings to boost the bars’ flavour artificially (and mask any off flavors they couldn’t quite roast away).
• The result of the over processing and masking leaves the bar with a poor final taste. We go back for more to cover that flavor back up again. And again. And again.
• In a lot of cases, farmers are encouraged to pass on poorly fermented beans. (We’re still looking into this one).

The bean to bar makers don’t need flavorings because they have nothing to hide. You can stop at one piece because you’re not left with a flat, tacky, dry mouth. You’re left with a flavor you want to savor for a long time. And you’re still comforted by that cocoa goodness.

What can you do? Our advice is find your comfort chocolate.

Read the packaging. Inside and out. Find the farm origin. Find the flavor notes.

Figure out what has been included to enhance the flavor and what’s been included to “hide” the poorer flavors.

And taste it! Compare between the “fast chocolate” made by commercial maker and “comfort chocolate” made by the bean to bar chocolate makers.

Have one piece and wait for 10 minutes just to see how your mouth feels afterwards.

Who knows what you’ll find..

And small tangent… Final chocolate coated thought:

I’m going too far here but bear with me. We can’t live without food, and instead of making food the focus point of why we live it’s being pushed aside as an inconvenience.

You know: “Let’s quickly scoff this bit of food down so I can keep doing what I’m doing”.

We’re eating for the sake of eating – which is a little sad.

Next time you have a home cooked meal, or you’re eating something that’s been hand made with intent and care like craft chocolate, really think about that mouthful.

That doesn’t mean identify all the ingredients and flavors, but take a moment, let the table go quiet for just a second.

Really enjoy that bite.

And keep looking for your next chocolate adventure. We’ve released Reasons One, Two and this is Three so now it’s onward to the next section. So stay tuned, we’ll be back soon and as always, thanks heaps for talking beans with us.

Where to next?

We’re figuring out flavors in chocolate! That’s currently in progress. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this Chocolate Coated Thought, we recommend:

And if you’re curious, we recommend:

And if you’re still not so sure, check out what events or makers are in your area:

Talk Beans with us!

Got any questions? Feedback? Want to hi say? Reach out below – we’re always happy to chat!

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