Single-Estate Premium Chocolate
Our cacao farm in Ghana has been in operation since 1892. Like most children in cacao growing communities we, toiled on the farm, could not afford chocolate but fantasied about making it someday. No chance. Though there is a glut of cacao beans in Ghana the practice has always been to export the fermented beans for cash. Cacao farming and chocolate making have been deliberately kept separate for over a century.
A visit to the Speciality Fine Food Fair in 2013 rekindled my dream and passion to make chocolate. This saved the cocoa trees on our farm. We had planned to replace them, with oil palm trees, as cacao growing was no longer economically viable.
Today we are one of the few vertically integrated chocolate makers in the UK with direct control over the entire value chain.We might also probably be the only native African cacaofevier making their own chocolate and beer in the UK.
We grow and process our own cacao. Picking ripened pods, fermenting, drying, sorting, bagging and grading the beans. When these exquisite beans make their way to our kitchen in Sittingbourne, Kent, they are delicately roasted, diligently winnowed, obsessively stone grounded and then aged to bring out the inherent flavour in each tablet.We make our chocolates with integrity. There is no 'couverture creep' in our tree to bar!
Below are samples of our affordable single origin cacao butter pressed from our cacao liquor.The cacao butter are then hand wrapped in biolefin,a food-grade, acid-free, biodegradeable shrink film which is USFDA approved for direct food contact - helping to keep it fresh.
But why do we go to such extraordinary lengths? Simple. Without the highest quality fermented cacao bean, ultra-premium chocolate can never be achieved.
It is universally acknowledged that 97% of the quality of a premium chocolate depends on the quality of the fermented bean. It has nothing to do with the cost or sophistry of the machinery nor the expertise of the chocolatier. It is down to the fermented bean .Poor bean,rubbish chocolate.
Now since cocoa farmers ultimately control the production cycle of the cacao bean, given a chance, they could probably make some of the world’s decadent gourmet chocolates.To prove it sample and always carry one of our tablets.
Our rawest and high quality Cocoa comes from Ghana, where the finest cocoa beans in the world are found.
ANTIOXIDANT
Cocoa Beans are rich in polyphenols, flavonoids and Vitamin E. Some of the antioxidants remain in Cocoa Butter even after it’s separated from the beans’ solids, which means it’s beneficial for lowering inflammation, improving skin health, and helping to improve the overall skin tone, elasticity and the appearance of stretch marks.
SOOTHING PROPERTIES
Cocoa Beans contain cocoa mass polyphenols, which stops production of antibodies found in the skin that cause the body to react against certain substances. This makes cocoa butter ideal for skin conditions such as dry skin, rashes and eczema.
COLLAGEN
The influence of cocoa mass polyphenols and cocoa butter on skin, has been proven in numerous studies from a histological point of view. Studies demonstrated a positive effect on skin structure, mainly collagen production.
