I am happy to find a site with people sharing my passion of making chocolate. I feel somehow lonely coming from south america and not have already seen any discussion of any south american members...Maybe I didn't search enough.
I started to be interrested by cacao when i had the opportunity to discover that french guiana had ancient abandonned cacao plantations since the colonisation period.For almost one year and a half I tryed with a friend to make at first the traditionnal cacao"baton"(don't know how to translate). Basically it is the nibs less or more fermented,dryed , less or more torrefied and grinded manually making a pastry rolled into a stick and served for traditionnal cacao drink after grating it into boilling milk with addition of sugar and spice.At that moment we just had the equipment for doing that.
Soon after we started to aim the chocolate making. Looking after internet , trying different fermentations, discovering the type of cacao we used (though it was forasteros but...discovering according to litterature and experiences that there were a lot of hybridation since the colonial period...)
We visited another chocolate maker in the country,and in a bordering country (suriname) both artisans .
We did experimentations until we discovered the melanger of cacaotown.I went to england to buy it(double price to shipping from the usa and more to pay at the customs here)...And tempering with marble and "bain marie".
Tests of tasting with the local and europeans inhabitants...Waiting for us to sell...from tree to bar. There is a lack of a lot of things over here and it is a patient and hard labour to fulfill our aims because we are very exigeant with the product and with ourselves.
What else to say ?My company is about to be created (small skale from tree to bar) and in spite of my mediocre english expression, i hope you will understand my introduction .
updated by @angenieux-drupa: 04/10/15 18:46:57