From bean to bar

At Benns, we simply love stories. Stories seem to have a miraculous ability to bring together people from all walks of life and enrich relationships. Through stories about our bean to bar chocolate, we hope to better connect with fellow chocolate lovers and bring new meaning to the chocolate-eating experience.

 

The tale of every bean to bar chocolate begins at a cacao farm. At that farm lives a cacao farmer and his family. Every year, the farmers grow cacao trees, harvest the cacao pods and leave out the wet cacao beans to dry and ferment. After which, they sell the dried cacao bean directly to bean to bar chocolate makers like us to work with, thus explaining why these chocolates bar are literally created from the “bean”. 

 

In creating bean to bar chocolates, every part of the production process is carefully controlled to bring out and showcase the natural flavours of the cacao bean. These flavours are called tasting notes and differ from origin to origin.

 

Many bean to bar chocolate makers choose to work only with high quality single origin/estate beans, and pay premium for it. High quality beans are essential to produce high quality chocolate and more importantly encourages a change in farmers’ mindset so that they focus on improving their quality which will be paid a premium for. Typically for bean to bar chocolates, only a few natural ingredients are used with no artificial additives or sweeteners added so as to bring out these natural tasting notes. As such most bean to bars are created 100% natural, vegan and gluten free. While a 60g beans to bar chocolate bar typically costs between USD8-10, the price is reflective of the time-consuming processes carried out to create a good quality piece of chocolate, as well as most bean to bar makers’ commitment to sustainable trade with farmers by paying them a higher price from their cacao.