The Cocoa
We purchase the best cocoa in the world, visiting directly the manufacturing cooperatives, making sure they respect the manpower of their workers and don’t exploit child labour.
The Selection
After one month travelling, the cocoa beans arrive in our workshop in Giaveno where they settle for three months. We then select by hand the most suitable beans for manufacturing, chosing only the ones with the highest degree of purity.
Roasting
At this stage we eliminate the bacteria from the peel, we remove humidity from the beans and the Maillard reaction starts. This will define the future flavor of our chocolate. Sixty minutes: this is the time we need to obtain a low-temperature manufacturing to enhance the aromas of the cocoa.
The Ripening
After a pre-refining and conching stage, the chocolate is tempered and moulded into blocks. It then ripens for six months at a controlled temperature to attenuate the natural sharp flavor, without the aid of salts to the detriment of aromas.
Cocoa: The passion production chain
Our research for the best cocoa in the world added up to our will to follow an ethic and sustainable path for our Planet, leads us to visit far away countries and to discover new cultures.<br /> We personally make sure that our suppliers, the cooperatives, have our same passion for cocoa and the same respect for the environment. This cohesion of intents and ideals has permitted us to create a virtuous chocolate supply chain, that finds its origins in the lands where cocoa grows, right up to<br /> the final packaging. Every year we purchase only the amount of cocoa we need for our sesonal production and we use up all the beans to avoid any kind of waste. We believe that the best chocolate does not only have the best taste, but it also respects our Planet’s natural life cycle.
Benefits of the Guido Castagna Natural Method
We chose to use only fine cocoa from Criollo, Trinitario and Arriba Nacional Forastero family which are among the most pure varieties and represent 10% of the cocoa worldwide. This allows us to mantain high quality and flavor. The slow production process is established by the rythm of the aromas: only when they reach the perfect stage, we start the manufacturing process.
Our Method is based on values. And the values we strongly believe in are respect for human rights and nature. We are conviced that only a perfect balance between work and respect for the environment can lead to a product with a perfectly balanced taste. Therefore we have no hurry and we choose to have no waste during the production process to give the right value to all the labourer’s efforts troughout the production chain, from the farmer to the chocolatier.
Our chocolate is like a time machine that takes us back to the moment when the cocoa seed is harvested. From that moment on everything that we do is finalised to preserve the original aromas and flavours. During every single step of the production process, from the sieving to the final tempering, we are very careful not to alterate the natural base we work on. Therefore we never use methods such as alkalization, that means washing the cocoa with potassium carbonate which neutralizes cocoa acidity. We wait for time to bring the original flavours back.
We are not interested in the mass.
Cocoa mass is a semi-finished product, widely used but we don’t actually know much about it.<br /> In fact it is difficult to trace the type of cocoa bean that has been used and if its production respects ethic principles and sustainable productive cycles for the environment. The main ingredient in the Guido Castagna Natural Method is the cocoa bean and not the cocoa mass. All of our chocolate production cycle is based on the choice and the roasting of the best cocoa beans in the world. The availability of this cocoa is very limited but our guideline is QUALITY not quantity. We prefer having a smaller production but respecting immeasurable values. And we are sure that the total amount of all our small figures will make the difference.
%
Variety of worldwide cocoa
Months
Minimum period for the Natural Method
Days
Cocoa bean sun drying
Months
Cocoa bean drying
Degrees
Roasting temperature
Micron
Cocoa bean refining
