I am very proud and happy to announce that our long awaited new collection is about to be released.

It has been a biggest challenge so far because of the tremendous effort and investment that went into this new development. I have put my best into it and I am finally satisfied with the end result.

Stay tuned for more news from us and be patient.

At Chocolate Naive the production cycle starts with thinking about why the recipe is important and how it adds value to the craft chocolate industry.

To me, chocolate-making is a slow and meditative process with a lot of planning and calibrating before I even try to attempt the first cacao bean test roast. I look closely at the raw materials in order to understand its hidden nuances and bring the best out of it. Quite often, I struggle for months to extract the optimal flavour and aromatic properties. Only well-balanced products deserve to be released.

It has been seven years since I started and I have been able to amass a little bit of chocolate production knowledge during this time. It has been a long and often painful journey but the research and development process was certainly necessary. I believe we are quite technical. I like to deconstruct the chocolate-making process and apply best practices from tradition, but also to innovate.

About 80 per cent of the machinery used in our lab is either custom engineered or refurbished antique items. I do not follow trends and unverified manufacturing ideas. I like to use orthodox knowledge first and then tweak it a little bit. In my humble opinion, the craft chocolate industry is in its infancy and small producers need to do more research before they release products into the market.

My chocolate lab is rather small and it has two people running it − me and my production assistant. Our highly efficient process helps us to remain hands-on but also enables us to produce over 5 tons of chocolate per year.

Domantas Uzpalis,
chocolatier

What is Nano_Lot cocoa?

Nano_Lot cocoa is available on an extremely limited basis and consequently only at specific times of the year, meaning once it’s gone, it’s gone. Those that I have chosen to feature boast the highest ratings, are of rarest qualities, and provide the most unique tasting experience. I strongly believe that these are the world’s best cocoas because of the amount of R&D given to them.

How do we find one?

Each year in cocoa growing regions around the world, farmers witness a range of quality variations across the crops they produce. During the harvesting season, farmers begin to notice that certain sections of their crop contain higher quality cocoa than the rest. These sections, known as nano_lots, are the cream of the crop, and as a result are desired by bean buying specialists.

What are the factors of influence?

There are a number of environmental influences and farming practices that can cause a nano_lot cocoa to form. Factors such as the quality of the soil, availability of the shade and genetics can cause certain areas of the overall crop to produce higher quality beans. Though these areas cannot be predicted from year to year, farmers are continually on the lookout for potential nano_lots within their crop. Once located, these nano_lots are treated with special care and are harvested and processed separately from the remainder of the crop. The superior quality of the resulting cocoa can be attributed to these exceptional farming practices.

Cocoa roasting develops the flavour in the beans from the precursors formed during fermentation and drying. During fermentation, aroma precursors, such as free amino acids, short-chain peptides, and reducing sugars, are formed, from which the typical cocoa aroma is suggested to be generated during the subsequent roasting process.

Cocoa undergoes a dramatic chemical change during the roasting process, giving rise to over 700 compounds with almost one-third representing important aromatic compounds. For example, the Amadori compounds, which are extremely reactive, produce a large number of flavours.

During the roasting the seeds change color somewhat and become more or less modified in taste. In underroasted seeds the flavor is not fully developed, while in overroasted seeds the pleasant taste is likely to become greatly impaired, or it may even be wholly replaced by a bitter and harsh flavor. These relations of color and taste to the roasting of the seeds make this portion of the manufacture one of the most delicate processes from beginning to end.

Cocoa bean roasting progresses in stages with first stage being completely endothermic (heat absorbing) where the vast majority of energy (heat) goes towards the evaporation of water. The second phase of roasting is accompanied by a exothermic phase. In the phase a large portion of the free water has been driven and the decomposition of sugars, proteins and lipids begin to take shape.

Things are both lost and created while cocoa roasting. The bean transforms as it is heated in many ways, but two of these changes are the most responsible: Maillard reaction and Caramelization.

During the Maillard reaction Amino acids and sugars in the cocoa interact in a complicated cascade of reactions, producing hundreds of flavor compounds and compounds. As the beans continue to get hotter, caramelization happens as well. While the Maillard reaction happens between sugars and amino acids, caramelization involves sugar alone. The main sugar present in cocoa is sucrose, which doesn’t partake in the Maillard reaction. Instead, the sucrose caramelizes, breaking down and yielding additional brown compounds.

To be continued..