Chocolate making a sweetly sensory experience

Three months after a bid of liquidation failed, Dunedin’s last remaining chocolatiers are here to stay.

Tim Scott hands in his golden ticket and takes a behind-the-scenes look inside the Ocho craft chocolate factory.

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Kyle Milner is no Willy Wonka.

The brown top hat has been traded for a black hair net, and there is not an Oompa Loompa to be seen.

Ocho head of production Kyle Milner loads grounded-up cacao bean nibs into a ball mill. It contains around 10,000 ball bearings which stir and crush the nibs in a vortex of about 50 Hz, along with sugar and any other added ingredients. PHOTOS: GREGOR RICHARDSON

But as he leads me through the doors to the Roberts St chocolate factory and a luscious aroma of cocoa fills my nostrils, he might as well be.

"I don’t smell the chocolate any more," he says.

The chocolate-maker and head of production at Dunedin craft chocolate company Ocho, who also had a brief stint working on a vineyard, said craft chocolate was "kind of like wine".

Unlike industrialised chocolate, which he said ended up tasting the same every time due to the added flavourings, craft chocolate was "more of an experience".

It contained a higher percentage of chocolate and lower amounts of sugar.

The factory space of the Ocho craft chocolate company, in Roberts St.

"Usually after a piece or two, you're happy enough.

"We like the beans to speak, rather than the sugar."

But it could take a while to reach the point of enjoying a 100% cacao block, whose only ingredient was the beans.

There was a non-scientific process to "enjoying chocolate" - not merely eating it, he said.

"It’s like a wine.

"You give it a smell, get the flavours out of that. Ideally you rub it between your fingers, that melts it a bit.

"You put it in your mouth for 10 seconds, you sort of rub it around your mouth to get all the taste buds and then you breathe in through your mouth, so then [the smell] goes down your throat and then you breathe out through your nose.

Ball bearings within a ball mill sit coated in grounded up cacao bean nibs, sugar and any other added ingredients. They are stirred and crushed before being mixed in a conching machine, which develops the flavour and removes the acidity.

The beans from Vanuatu had a "fruity" taste, while those from Papua New Guinea were slightly more bitter with notes of citrus and the Solomon Islands were "earthy".

Different regions had different flavours - like wines, he said.

"And that's what we want to bring out.

"We want people to enjoy the uniqueness of the chocolate, have the experience, and it's never going to be the same."

Chocolate pours down from a tempering machine into a heated bowl, which mixes it and distributes temperature so the solidified cocoa butter crystals are evenly formed and the chocolate tastes smoother.

Ocho was one of the bigger craft chocolate companies in New Zealand, and the process of making it was about finding the best flavour and texture in every bean, Mr Milner said.

The company produces between 200 and 250kg of chocolate a week, about 12 tonnes a year.

The general population did probably not know about the nuances that went into producing craft chocolate, but Mr Milner said he could see the people of Dunedin embracing Ocho — "if they give it a chance".

A range of packaged Ocho craft chocolate sits on a shelf at the company’s Roberts St factory.

"If they give it a chance and sort of try to understand it a bit more, the nuances of it ... and treat it as an experience rather than just something you're scoffing in front of TV.

"You do sort of have to sit there with it and be in the moment."

tim.scott@odt.co.nz