Within the Little Chocolate Factory So Good Willy Wonka Would Kill Himself [Video]

The Mast Brothers make chocolate in NYC. It’s some of the very few places that craft bean-to-bar chocolate. It’s fucking delicious. With our friends at Eater , we’d want to show you ways they make it. And their beards.

A stark contrast to the vast industrial operations of Hershey, Nestle or just any other chocolate company you’ve ever heard of, they produce around 1,000 bars a day, hand-roasting in a small convection oven, using oldschool techniques and kit, like a stone grinder. (Except for their winnowing machine, custom-made by a former aerospace engineer. A winnowing machine pulls the shells off the beans before their ground, essentially.)

While the mega-corporate chocolate industry has sought for the right way to make their chocolate even cheaper-going thus far as to lobby the FDA so they are able to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oil and still call it chocolate-the Mast Brothers ‘ chocolate is stripped down and natural. They don’t add vanilla (or a chemical version), extra oils or butters, or emulsifiers. What which means is so that you can taste the chocolate, and where it comes from-comparing a chocolate from Madagascar to at least one from Venezuela, that you could taste the adaptation, like the terroir in wine or coffee.

A bar of Mast Brothers chocolate goes for around eight bucks, or you may get taste of it at restaurants like Thomas Keller’s Per Se and the French Laundry , or the brand new York outpost of Blue Bottle Coffee in a mocha. Pricey, nevertheless it’s worth it, while you love chocolate. [ Mast Brothers , Eater's Mast Bros. Coverage ]

Interview by Joshua David Stein, Video by Woody Jang

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This post is tagged: aerospace engineer, chocolate company, chocolate industry, convection oven, industrial operations, stark contrast