Founded: 2007
Location: Swannanoa Valley between Black Mountain & Asheville North Carolina
Written By: David A. Mason, Founder & Chocolate Maker
Table of Contents
Black Mountain Chocolate is the result of a passion that formed in my home kitchen in Charleston, SC around 2005. I was working in golf course management at a private club on Kiawah Island. One of my employees was from Oaxaca Mexico and told me about her town and culture which included the fabulous chocolate that was made there. She brought me a taste and I became intrigued, especially at one particular part of the process she told me about, the roasting. I had no idea at the time how chocolate was made, I thought cocoa was the powder we made our chocolate milk with and to make chocolate they just dried it up, added sugar and made it into a bar. Another employee of mine was from the Chiapas. He was a former cacao farmer and told me about his family and how he could not support his family doing it anymore. I soon put two and two together and was eager to learn more.
I began to do research online and through books learning the history of chocolate, how the cacao was grown, and how it was made in to chocolate. I quickly connected the history of chocolate to the Chiapas and the surrounding region and was surprised to find out that very little of the supply comes from these areas today. To me, it made no sense. Much like most of our food, chocolate had lost touch with its history. It has been dumbed down to a flavor and a junk food from what was once considered so valuable they used the beans themselves as currency. How could this happen?
I also learned that there were few companies in the United States, or in the World for that matter that produced chocolate from the bean. Much like all other foods it became industrialized to the point where just a handful of major processors were turning out cocoa mass, cocoa powder and cocoa butter and selling it to "chocolate makers" as ingredients for them to turn into whatever they wanted. It was no wonder that I knew nothing of how it was really made. This, I thought, had to change.
The first thing I had to do was learn how to make it. I found some raw, fermented cacao beans online. Sourced some homemade chocolate making equipment and began to make chocolate by roasting the beans in the oven at home. I have to tell you, I was a bit appalled at the smell of the raw beans. Definitely not what I was expecting and I was skeptical that I can turn them into anything remotely tasting like chocolate. However, as the beans roasted in the oven the transformation began and it smelled more like chocolate minute by minute. A last they were done, and my first batch of chocolate was underway. A day later, while I was tasting the finished product I realized that I could do this. I had a goal in mind, bring people closer to the source of their chocolate and open their eyes to the process. It was not going to be an easy task.
Now the chocolate that I was making at home was decent but not even close to the standards of some of the finest chocolate in the world. I had to learn more. In my research I came across a chocolate technology short course mostly geared toward educating new employees to the larger industry, and decided it was worth the big fee to get behind the science more. I gained a good bit of knowledge on the finer points of making a good quality chocolate and left to embark on putting together a small factory.
Well, being that there was literally no such thing as small chocolate production I had to get creative. I knew roasting was the first, most important task in the process. There were some old inefficient roasters on the market for ridiculous prices solely due to their nostalgic value, but I can tell you they were no longer produced for a reason. The best thing for me to do was to have one built, and I did. beyond that I sourced the rest of my equipment, mostly lab and r&d type stuff but very accurate and ready for the task.
To be continued...
