OUR CHOCOLATE
Chocolate is going through a craft revolution.
Craft chocolate is a celebration of the cacao bean and a process that calls for small batch high quality chocolate.
Handcrafted from bean to bar in Hong Kong, Conspiracy Chocolate is made for true chocolate lovers.
With the dedication and care that we put into every single one of our chocolate creations and the quality of ingredients we source, we bring an unforgettable and lasting experience to our customers.
Controlling the entire process from roasting to moulding allows us to play with the different notes in the cacao and create our own flavour profile.
Chocolate making is an art that requires patience, passion and perseverance. There is no perfect formula to making chocolate, the process evolves with each new bag of cacao beans.
Our Philosophy
We pride ourselves on delivering the best taste, quality and experience with our all chocolate creations. At Conspiracy Chocolate we believe in sharing sweet moments with the people we love and finding the right flavour for every occasion.
Sourcing & Ingredients
Our cacao beans come from a single farm the Dak Lak province in Vietnam, they are hand sorted, fermented and dried in natural sunlight. The farm we source from runs as a successful and growing business, they set their own prices and sell directly to us instead of going through a cooperative.
The tasting notes of the cacao are earthy, spicy and fruity, smooth and full-bodied with a long finish. Craft chocolate focuses on the cacao and adapts the production process to each bag of cacao. It is about letting the true nature of the cacao show, letting the natural aromas shine while retaining the natural health benefits found in cacao.
Conspiracy chocolate is 75% or higher and does not contain anything besides pure cacao and minimal amounts of organic raw cane sugar. Our chocolate is accidentally vegan.
We offer our community imaginative and harmonious combinations of flavours using high quality ingredients and transforming them as little as possible. We use only natural flavouring such as nuts and spices to retain the health benefits, taste and texture of each individual ingredient. We do not believe in additives and we choose organic wherever possible.
Bean-to-Bar
Chocolate as we know it appeared in Europe in the 1800s when an Englishman managed to turn cacao paste into a solid bar. The Swiss then added condensed milk to it and voila, the Nestles and Cadburys were born, introducing commercial chocolate to the world.
In the 2000, two Americans deconstruct the chocolate making process and try to make chocolate in a slow way that puts cacao back at the centre of the process. They were the ones who started the bean-to-bar or craft chocolate movement that we are part of. Much like craft beer and sourdough bread did, craft chocolate aims at going back to the more traditional, healthier and less processed product.
Bean-to-bar is literally the transformation of cacao beans into chocolate using intentional and manual processes to retain the original taste and benefit of the cacao.
Each craft chocolate maker has their own way to work with the chocolate and although we all follow similar steps, the variance in time and temperatures during the process will give a completely unique chocolate bar at the end.
At the farm
Harvest
The farmer grows cacao of 5 different variety on his specific terroir. There are 2 harvest in a year.
Fermentation
When ripe, the cacao pods are emptied in wooden fermentation boxes and the cacao beans are left for 1 week for a wild fermentation.
Drying
The last step at the farm is the drying of the beans that also take about 1 week in the sun. The taste of fermentation will be more or less pronounced depending on the drying speed.
At the Chocolate Lab
Roasting
We use a coffee roaster to roast our beans for ultimate control and consistency. The roast will tame down some of the acidic notes from fermentation and bring out some more chocolatey and nutty notes.
Refining and Conching
Once the beans are roasted, they get peeled so that we are left only with the cacao nib. The nibs get ground down with a stone grinder for 2-3 days. This will reduce the particle size of the cacao, making a smooth chocolate. The stone grinder will also allow the flavour of the cacao to develop, opening up some of the more subtle flavours. Our chocolate is aged 1 month after this process to let the flavour stabilise.
Tempering
The last step of the process is tempering in which we use heating and cooling the chocolate to turn it into a shiny and snappy bat that melts in your mouth and not in your hands,. There is a lot of science attached to this process and if you are interested to learn more, you can read here. Once the chocolate is tempered we add natural flavours to it such as teas, peppers, spices and nuts. The bars are then packaged right away and ready to be shipped out!
Overall, craft chocolate makers use high quality ingredients, take time to develop the right aroma resulting in small batches.