ARE YOU ADVENTEROUS ENOUGH TO BE AN CHOCOLATE ARTISAN?

To be an chocolate artisan is to be an adventurer. Or you simply wont make it. You must head for Ternate. Which is not on the Old Silk Route, as I once thought.You must land at airports such as Ba Ullah, which is not in Mongolia.You must take a boat Kalumata to Cobo and hike to Rum. For these are the last frontiers of cocoa and they just happen to be in my backyard,in the archipelago of Indonesia. In short you must do what the great chocolate artisan adventurers like Tim Childs and D'Vries did in their backyards(here I am including Peru as being in the backyard, for instance, Tim's San Francisco factory).

It is very desirable, if you want to go into the chocolate business and make a name for yourself, to be an artisan chocolatier.The mass markets are already amply covered very competently by the big boys. If they had time I would advise they develop a small artisan chocolate division. But they wont of course, because they have to focus and also they think I am stupid. Artisan chocolate will fill the substantial niche markets that have a desire to savour different superb chocolates.

Many comparisons are made between chocolate and wine. But in reality for wine, all you need is a nice plot of land. You plant grapes, harvest and jump on them and you make your own wine. To be an chocolatier you pack your rucksack and go. You may never return if you step on a Komodo Dragon.

There are three steps in being a Artisan Chocolatier.Let me capitalise these words, to give the profession more dignity.

STEP ONE

1)Discover a promising farmer, plantation, cooperative, in some out-of-the-way place that has the interesting soil and conditions to produce, or in fact is already producing, good cocoa. It takes much looking around as professional artisans will tell you.

2)Then start to work directly with the farmer either by yourself or if you have the capital, through an agronomist.

3)Use your know-how to give direction to the farmer on growing through to harvesting the cocoa.

4)Provide guidance and tools for better fermentation boxes, drying floors or solar drying.

5)Then pay more for the cocoa to reward the farmer. More than market prices or more than Fair Trade prices.

STEP TWO

1)Don't attempt to follow Valrohono. Or any of the others. They will bury you. Do your own thing. Coax your own flavour, texture stealthily out of the beans. Make it a very personal thing.

2)This makes the artisan chocolate market as creative as the wine market. So welcome and encourage other artisans. The more the merrier. The bigger the love for gourmet chocolate.

3)The choice of equipment is going to be critical. A modern turbo-tamperer will put you out the business straight-off. Read, go to the library, talk to Chocovic. Don't be afraid to take chocolate making back a hundred years. Do not be afraid to do it by hand. In fact separating the nibs from shells is best done by hand. There will be no risk of getting husk bits into your chocolate.

4)Tell the story of your unique chocolate to your customers.

STEP THREE

1)Be open. Go to art galleries, the cinema, the orchestra, read profusely,enjoy wine and cheese,pray, expand your mind. A person with a narrow focus can never be an artisan. He is just a clot.

2)Embrace new ingredients, techniques, information, ideas and be obsessed.Share.

3)Be aware that much resources for being a chocolate artisan are there for you to excitingly discover, in Indonesia. Besides patience, industry, innovation is inbuilt in our genetic code.

4)Indonesia also has far reaching, extremely wide and embracing cooking values, resources tradition. Which is an important element in the evolution of an cooking craft.Collaborate with people of other traditions to make progress.