Bean to Bar

Entry in progress—B.P.
     
Twitter
Adrienne Newman
‏@MadameCocoa
Ooo! New domestic bean-to-bar, micro-batch Potomac Chocolate Co. “in progress”, testing out beans and equipment…. http://fb.me/AkPdzM1F
1:32 PM - 8 Nov 2010
 
SF Weekly (San Francisco, CA)
Dandelion Chocolate: The Return of Bean-to-Bar in SF
By Ben Narasin Wed., Feb. 22 2012 at 10:00 AM
​Bean-to-bar chocolate is tough to do authentically, and other than TCHO, S.F. hasn’t had a local B2B producer of note since Scharffen Berger shut down their facility, but here’s some good news: Dandelion is a weed worth watching. Since their start in an East Palo Alto garage, these chocolatiers have moved to the Dogpatch and are prepping to open to the world in the Mission this summer. In the meantime, you can buy their “Small Batch” bars in stores.
 
They “roast, crack, sort, winnow, grind, conch, and temper” the beans they buy from around the world, then wrap them up in classic golden wrappers,number them by batch, initial them by hand, and send them out to eat.
   
Twitter
Marc&Dineke v Bommel
‏@Conserven
De Wereld van Willie’s Cacao. The UK’s only ‘bean to bar’ premium chocolate Maker.
#Chocolade #Cacao
http://twitdoc.com/2ODW
1:30 AM - 15 Feb 2014
 
The Telegraph (UK)
Is ‘bean to bar’ the next big thing in chocolate?
Many chocolatiers are now grinding their cocoa beans on site - and in one exciting new product, even including the shell
By Andrew Baker 11:49AM GMT 20 Mar 2014
(...)
True connoisseurs now like to pursue products that are not concocted from bought-in-bulk chocolate, but in which the whole process, from the grinding of the bean to the moulding of the bar, has occurred in one spot, under the care of one group of people: “bean-to-bar” chocolate.
 
The concept was pioneered by trendsetters in the United States such as Potomac and Dandelion, and in this country by the principled and determined Duffy Sheardown: their bars can be found by the discerning online, in confectionery boutiques and smart department stores.
 
chocablog
Thinking Out Of The Conch: From Bean To Bar With Paul A Young
Posted by Dom in Features on March 20 2014
(...)
Whole Bean Chocolate
The key was in the winnowing. The time consuming process of removing the paper-like shells from roasted cocoa beans. Most chocolate makers have machines the do this automatically, but doing it by hand in their early bean-to-bar experiments, the team started to wonder why they were doing it at all. After all, they knew the shells had flavour, as they’re often used to make “cocoa tea” infusions. So why not just leave them on?