How We Make Our Chocolates
Over 3,000 Haitian farmers work tirelessly to grow our cacao. Then, our dedicated team handcraft our chocolates from the bean to the bar. Find out how we make our delicious chocolate bars in Haiti.
What Makes Our Chocolate-Making Process Different to Commercial Manufacturers?
Haitian farmers cultivate tropical gardens with different crops, creating the utmost flavor. They harvest the cacao beans from the pods while our all-women chocolate artisans team take charge of the chocolate making process.
We use traditional chocolate making techniques to give you the best chocolate. Every step from fermenting and roasting to grinding and refining. When you invest in our artisanal chocolate, you get a smooth texture and top quality.
Meanwhile, large scale mass production does not lend itself to individual care and ingredient quality control as small-batch production can. Often, the large companies use unfermented cacao beans grown with chemical aids. They rush through the process and over-roast their beans. They then grind them fast and put additives in like lecithin and artificial flavors.
Step 1: Planting & Harvesting
Dedicated farmers planted all the cacao trees in Haiti's beautiful soil. They ensure our cacao thrives. After plenty of rain and moisture, we harvest the ripe cacao pods by hand.
How are cacao beans harvested?
We single out the mature pods and cut them away from the tree. We must be extra careful to avoid damaging the flower buds or the unripe pods. Our farmers cut open the pods with a machete and extract the white wet beans.
Step 2: Fermenting & Drying
How to ferment cacao beans
After the harvest, our farmers load the wet beans in wood boxes and cover them with banana leaves.
The beans fermentation is an important step as it unleashes the ultimate flavor of the beans. It helps to boost the competitiveness of Haitian cacao.
The fermentation takes up to eight days. It unleashes the ultimate flavor of the beans.
Step 3: Drying & Sorting
Once fermentation is over, we dry our beans on a drying rack. The drying is complete once the moisture within the bean reaches six to seven percent.
Once they reach this level, we bring the cacao beans to the chocolate factory. Our chocolate artisans sort the beans by size and quality.
Our team painstakingly inspect the beans for any damage. As a small batch chocolate company, we pride ourselves in sorting and inspecting every single bean that we use in our chocolate making process.
Step 4: Roasting & Cracking
How to roast cacao beans
The optimal roast time depends on the size of the cacao beans. The medium-sized beans take around 35 minutes. We roast our cacao beans to get deeper and distinct flavors.
Our chocolate makers crack the beans to remove unwanted shells from the chocolate part i.e. "cacao nibs”. We use a flat basket called "laye" and a powerful commercial fan to blow the shells away.
Step 5: Grinding & Refining
How to make chocolate from cacao beans
We grind the nibs for 72 hours. The grinding breaks the nibs down. We then add sugar to the mix. We only add cacao butter for our milk chocolate flavors. Soon, you will start to recognize the “chocolate liquid” (also known as “chocolate liquor”).
Step 6: Tempering & Molding
We temper the chocolate and make it all nice and shiny.
Our artisans mold the liquid chocolate into the shiny chocolate bar shape we both know and love.
Step 7: Packaging & Shipping
We wrap your delicious chocolates in our signature Askanya packaging. Now, we ship our fully packaged and inspected bars to our warehouse in the US. This ensures you get your chocolate delivery on time.
Testimonial from the Askanya Chocolates Team
"M'ap travay nan Askanya depi an 2016. M te rantre nan fè menaj. Answit mwen janbe nan pwodiksyon. Kouneya (2023), m se sipèvize pwodiksyon / chèf pwodiksyon."
"I joined Askanya in 2016. At first, I was working as the housekeeper and cleaner. Later, I moved into chocolate production. Now, (2023), I am the Head of Production."