Midnight Vanilla

How your bar was made. Inside the process.

Crafting this chocolate began with completely opposing goals — to make a very high-percentage chocolate while giving it a lightness of touch. This led to some surprising innovations and the choice of just three ingredients. By selecting single-origin beans capable of retaining their complexity through a double-conching process, we could begin to control the refinement of the chocolate, reducing bitterness and softening the natural acidity often present in very high-percentage chocolate.

Both the cocoa beans and vanilla beans are sourced from Madagascar, creating a natural balance from the closely aligned growing conditions of soil and climate, while allowing the chocolate to express the true character of its ingredients. Using one of the world’s most expensive ingredients — the seeds from Bourbon vanilla pods — adds a gentle sweetness, with a subtle buttery-spice note, that is revealed gradually from within the dark chocolate.

This is achieved through our carefully calibrated profiles for roasting, stone-grinding, and conching, resulting in a three-ingredient bar that brings clarity and depth to a very dark chocolate. At the beginning of our company the Midnight Vanilla bar was one of the first chocolates we developed new methods and processes for, and it has had a lasting influence on how we continue to approach making chocolate.