I have journeyed to the soul of chocolate and I bring you good tidings

boing
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Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2015/02/25/i-have-journeyed-to-the-soul-o.html
Cold brewed coffee is a revelation of complex, bittersweet, intense flavor. Cold-brewed chocolate? Even better. (Holy. Crap.)

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from Cacao nibs?

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You meant cacao, not coffee, right?

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LOLZ…jinx!

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OK, now that I’ve RTFA, I have a few thoughts:

  • You put chocolate and whiskey together. I love you.

  • What about using one of the many other cold brew processes which have been discussed here at BB?

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Next logical step has to be a blend cacao and coffee. Maybe start with a 50/50 mix and tweak it until it approaches Nirvana.

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I don’t have a grinder (although I’ve been eyeing this one). Would a mortar and pestle work?

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I don’t consume any sweeteners – sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc – but you probably do.

I’ll bet this would be great with a little high-fructose corn syrup!

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Gave up sugar about six months ago. Really missed chocolate. My partner got me some chocolate nibs and I was just eating them straight. Good stuff. Then she brought home some stevia, in little packets. So I combined the nibs and some stevia powder directly in my mouth. (I am uncouth.) I had that same experience of just wanting to weep it was so good.

This is the closest I have ever felt to Cory. We share the love of the bitter miracle.

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Whoops, thanks!

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I think “raw cacao nibs” may be an oxymoron - my understanding is that roasting is a necessary part of making cacao nibs, and even if it was possible to keep the heat low while drying and separating the shell, it would be undesirable as the resulting nibs wouldn’t taste much like chocolate and would be dangerously full of bacteria.
Since chocolate is basically just finely ground nibs, this process sounds like it’s different in that it’s leaching the sugar and some cocoa butter out of the nibs, while being less bitter because it’s leaving behind most of the nutritious but bitter cocoa solids.

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Wait, you’re mixing the Yamakazi? Why are you mixing the Yamakazi?

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I have used a mortar and pestle to grind cocoa nibs… and while it is possible its really really hard work.
They’re really oily, more so than coffee, so you’re making a paste more than grounds, I gave up and scraped the lot into a foodmill and chopped it until the motor nearly gave up, but I did get a smoothish gooey paste in the end. :slight_smile:

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This.

Also, the papery shells from around the cocoa beans can also be steeped to make a chocolate tea that is amazing.
(and probably a lot less work than all this.)

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When all the tea and cold press is done, here’s what you do with the shells themselves:

Blommer Chocolate Company is the largest chocolate maker in the U.S. Most people/companies you think of as “chocolate makers” are actually chocolatiers…they take the cocoa/chocolate product produced by factories like Blommer’s and create their end products. Actually processing the raw cacao bean is done by only a handful of manufacturing companies in the U.S.

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As a Canadian I wonder where my chocolate is processed…
Interesting!

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So . . . are we talking about the same thing here?

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I can’t believe I’m the first person to mention this - BLADE GRINDER??? I thought it was axiomatic among the cognoscenti that one must use a burr grinder on coffee.

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So my buddy, lastnight asked me “Why do you have 1 lb of cacao nibs” and I said “really, not sure. Wanted them for one thing, and decided they’re very tasty and hard to use”

So. Thank you. This will be going down tonight at chez acer.

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Burr grinders are better for coffee. Though, um, this isn’t a post about coffee.

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