The process of making chocolate begins with the farmers. They grow the cocoa on their plantations and when the cocoa is ready, the farmers go through and harvest all the ripe pods. The selection process for harvesting the right cocoa needs to be done with care so that only the cocoa beans at their peak ripeness will be used in the chocolate making process.

Once all the pods are harvested, they are broken open and the beans are removed. The beans will then undergo a fermentation process and afterwards, they are set in the sun to be dried.

Now the beans are ready to be sold and shipped to the location of the buyer's factory.

Depending on the type of chocolate that is going to be created the process for making it can vary. Many chocolate companies will take ground cocoa beans and add cocoa butter, milk and sugar among other ingredients to create their own special blend. After this, the chocolate is typically refined to create a smaller particle size and is turned into a form of liquid cocoa in the process. The chocolate is then mixed in a process called conching in order to blend all the ingredients together and give it a more smooth texture. The next step involves tempering which is a very important and delicate part of the process. The chocolate is heated and cooled in a controlled manner causing the chocolate to harden while keeping all the ingredients evenly spread throughout the finished product.

However, Yachana Gourmet's process is unique. Our process involves producing a product made from little pieces of all-natural cacao known as "nibs". In doing so, Yachana Gourmet provides consumers with chocolate in its purest form 100% roasted cocoa beans sweetened with just a touch of sugar cane juice - a chocolate like no other, chocolate as nature intended it to be.

To learn how Yachana Gourmet makes our chocolate, please visit our 'Making Jungle Chocolate' page.