I visited Ecuador for 48 hours to pick up fresh cacao fruit, then brought it back to my kitchen and made milk chocolate. This may have been the craziest thing I have ever done. Most people will eat chocolate their entire lives without ever knowing where it comes from. I want to change this, not just with chocolate but with many foods out there. Chocolate itself doesn't just grow on trees. Instead, it's a fruit. One that looks something like an alien life form, but tastes better than anybody could possibly describe.
Think of something that's light, almost foamy. It varies in flavor but can have many notes and flavors including sweet, slightly tart, lemon, lychee, mango, pineapple, and perhaps even a very light taste of chocolate. The process then has several stages. Fermentation, drying, roasting, then grinding. Ultimately, the ground cocoa liquor is blended with additives such as milk powder, sugar, and more to create the chocolate bars we all know and love.
I want to give a massive thanks to the MANY people that made this trip happen, specifically Blue Stripes Cacao and Bean and Co, who let us visit their farm. In fact, as mentioned in the video I've arranged with Blue Stripes to create a box (this is NOT any sort of ad, promotion, etc. They're giving you a box of goodies basically at-cost so you can experience cacao as well, at my request):
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