What "Expensive" Actually Means

Every year, somebody publishes a list of the world's most expensive chocolate. It always looks something like this.

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  10. La Madeline au Truffle — a truffle wrapped in ganache, in a gold box. $250
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   9. To'ak Chocolate Bar — 50 grams, in a handcrafted elm box. $360
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   8. Debauve & Gallais Le Livre — 35 ganaches in a gold-adorned leather book. $550
  
  

  List continued below (Click here)

  
  The price usually comes from everything surrounding the chocolate: gold leaf, gemstones, antique coins, elaborate boxes, designer presentation.
  
  That's one way to make chocolate expensive.
  
  We make ours expensive another way.
  
  
  The expensive part is the labor.
  
  

  Ours is expensive for a different reason: a person does something slow and exacting that a machine doesn't do.

  Here is what actually costs something.

  
  Step one 
  We roast our cocoa beans whole, shell on — a pound at a time. Not because a pound is convenient, but because it's the most we can watch closely enough not to ruin.
  
  Step two 
  We push the roast to the point where the shell itself puffs and lifts away from the nib inside — the cocoa equivalent of an espresso roast. Underdo it and the shell won't let go. Overdo it by the smallest margin and the bean turns to charcoal. There is no setting to punch in. You watch the shell, you listen for it, you smell for the moment it's ready, and you stop exactly there.
  
  Step three
  We cool the beans. Then, by hand, one at a time, we shell them.
  
  
  

  The industry doesn't do this. Commercial cocoa is roasted hot enough to loosen the shell, then run through a winnower that shatters shell and bean together and sorts the pieces by weight. It's fast, it's cheap, and it can leave fine shell material behind in the nib — contributing to the dusty, tannic character often associated with dark chocolate.
  
  It doesn't have to taste that way.
  
  We separate them by hand, one bean at a time, because it's the only way to get all of the shell out and none of the bean lost. It is rare. It is repetitive. It is genuinely tedious, hour after hour, batch after batch. And it is the reason our roast can do something a shell-contaminated roast never can: shape flavor instead of fighting bitterness. The same aggressive roast that would read as harsh in commercial cocoa reads, in ours, as round, smooth, and chocolate-forward — because there's no shell dust underneath it fighting back.
  
  That labor is what you're paying for. Not a box. Not a coin. Not a gemstone sitting next to a chocolate that was never the point.
  
  
  

  Continued  Purchase a bar today

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   7. Noka's Vintage Collection — a brushed steel box, from a company that no longer exists. $854
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   6. DeLafée's Gold Box — eight chocolates under 24-karat gold leaf, with an antique coin. $1,010
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   5. Wispa Gold — a candy bar with a gold leaf wrapper. $1,600
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   4. Swarovski Studded Chocolates — 49 crystal-adorned pieces in a silk-and-platinum box. $10,000
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   3. The Golden Speckled Egg — 110 pounds, built by seven chocolatiers over three days. $10,000
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   2.Frrrozen Haute Chocolate — a sundae under 24-karat gold. $25,000
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   1. Le Chocolat Box — chocolates alongside diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds. $1,500,000