“Bean to Bar” at Belize Chocolate Company

We’ve always had a saying in my home:  “There’s no such thing as too much chocolate.”  While it’s not *quite* true, it comes very close.  And that’s the reason I scheduled a visit to Belize Chocolate Company during a recent trip to the tiny town of San Pedro on lovely Ambergris Caye.

Peace, Love and Chocolate

Belize Chocolate Company is a family-owned, artisan chocolate shop with a beachside patio and vibrant red picnic tables.  If you go inside the shop (and you should), you’ll be richly rewarded with refreshing air conditioning and yummy chocolate samples.  While there, you can order a tasty chocolate treat from the menu, buy a tee shirt emblazoned with “Peace, Love and Chocolate,” and browse the wide selection of chocolate products and souvenirs.  Or, you can do what we did:  Take the chocolate-making class that’s held on weekday mornings.

Take the Chocolate-Making Class

The company’s chocolate production facilities are actually located elsewhere, so don’t expect to take a tour and see huge machines churning out chocolate.  But, if you ask me, this chocolate-making class is way better.  And here’s why.  First, the class size is small (no more than 10), so there is ample opportunity to ask questions and even test your chocolate-grinding skills.  Second, the class is taught by a friendly and knowledgeable instructor:  Chris Beaumont, who is co-owner of the chocolate shop with his wife, Jo Sayer.  Third, you’ll have the opportunity to sample the chocolate at all stages of the process.  And forth, you get to sit in a cozy corner of the deck and admire the beautiful turquoise sea.  What’s not to like?!

Chris and Jo opened the chocolate shop in 2012, after coming to Belize to set up a windsurfing and sailing school.  Inspired by a chocolate festival in southern Belize in 2007, they began experimenting with cacao beans in the kitchen of their home on the beach.  Eventually they developed a uniquely Belizean product which uses locally-sourced, organic, fair-trade and direct-trade cacao beans and Belizean cane sugar as the only ingredients.  Their chocolate shop offers a delicious selection of individual truffles using as many Belizean ingredients as possible — such as Belizean citrus blossom honey, coconut, pineapple, bananas, cashews, rum and even Belikin sorrel stout.  My suggestion:   Buy your Belizean souvenirs here if you want to take home a real taste of the tropics — rather than a tchotchke from China!

From Bean to Bar

You may already know that chocolate comes from the beans of the Theobrama Cacao tree.  But have you ever seen the bean pods?  The beans are contained inside large, oblong-shaped pods with a tough exterior.  Cacao trees bear fruit from January to June, and the Belizean beans come from small, family farms whose average size is an acre and a half.

Inside the pod, surrounded by a sweet pulp, there are 50 to 60 beans.  (I was surprised to hear that the Mayan people may have originally harvested the cacao pods for the sweet pulp rather than for the beans, only later learning about the amazing taste and benefits of the beans.)  But at this stage the beans taste nothing like chocolate, and transforming the beans into a delectable bar requires careful selection and processing.

After the beans are removed from the pods, they are fermented and then dried in the sun.  Next the beans are roasted, which begins to develop the complex chocolate flavor that we all know and love.  Then the beans are ready for cracking and winnowing, which involves separating the bean from its shell.  What’s left are the cacao nibs — which are essentially the original chocolate chip.

The nibs are ground to produce chocolate liquor.  Traditionally, a stone metate is used to grind the nibs.  A metate is a flat or slightly hollowed oblong stone on which the nibs are ground using a smaller stone — similar to a mortar and pestle.  After Chris demonstrated the proper technique, my classmates and I took turns learning the proper wrist motion that’s used to grind the nibs.

Chris added sugar to the nibs so we could taste the resulting dark chocolate.  Dark chocolate (the only kind I eat) is made with a ratio of 70 percent nibs and 30 percent sugar, while milk chocolate is 45 percent nibs plus equal amounts of powdered milk and sugar to make up the remaining 55 percent.  White chocolate is made from cocoa butter (derived by pressing the chocolate liquor), sugar, and milk.  Chris offered us samples of all three kinds so we could compare.

Several other steps are needed to produce the finished bars, and you can learn about all of it here.

You Can Buy the Beans and Bars Online

If you won’t be making a trip to Belize anytime soon (although you certainly should), check out the company’s website and place an order for chocolate bars, chocolate body products, and/or “all other things chocolate” — including chocolate balsamic vinegar.

I brought home several packages of nibs and a small bottle of the vinegar, and I will be experimenting with them — so keep an eye on my Instagram feed for the resulting treats!