The difference between a chocolatier and chocolate maker.
Figure 1. On the bottom is my work as a chocolate maker - mixing some cocoa nibs and sugar together in a refiner. On the top is my work as a chocolatier - making chocolate “Gingy” out of chocolate I did not make. Disclaimer - no gingerbread men were hurt in the making of this photo opp.
What I deal with here at Bean To Bar World revolves around chocolate makers. Most people today do not understand that there is a difference between a chocolate maker and a chocolatier (sometimes called a chocolate melter). Many conflate them as the same role/skill.
Chocolatiers
Most chocolate shops in the world are chocolatiers. Even many of the top most expensive world renowned chocolate shops (be it France, London, New York, Singapore, or Japan) are chocolatiers. And what does that mean? It means they take chocolate made from a chocolate manufacturer (AKA chocolate maker) and proceed to melt it down and shape it into bars or turn it into confections such as truffles, pralines, or other chocolate confections. They don’t actually make the ingredient chocolate itself. They don’t take the raw beans, roast them, grind them, and turn them into chocolate.
Figure 2. On the left are a few examples of my work as a chocolatier (figurines, Easter eggs, bonbons, and truffles) all made from couverture chocolate purchased from a large-scale chocolate manufacturer. On the right is my work as a small-scale micro-batch chocolate maker making chocolate from the raw (unroasted) cocoa beans and turning it into chocolate. From there I can proceed to use it to make simple chocolate bars or even all the products you see on the left. The only difference would be that I made the chocolate that was used to make those products on the left. A chocolatier wouldn’t have made the actual chocolate.
See the images on the left in Figure 2. These are images of chocolate products I made while working as a chocolatier many years ago. I took chocolate already made (Cacao Barry, Valrhona, Belcolade, Callebeaut), and proceeded to make bars, figurines, truffles, ganaches, bonbons, and more. I didn’t actually make the chocolate, but I used chocolate to make other chocolate products. I made what we refer to as “chocolates” (bonbons, truffles, etc.), but I didn’t make the actual chocolate that I used to make those confections. That’s a chocolatier.
That’s what most chocolate shops and chocolate companies around the world produce. If you ever stepped into a chocolate shop in your city, or a place you traveled to, it was most likely a chocolatier. They may even state that they make everything from scratch, artisan, and make the chocolates themselves, and that may all be true. That’s what a good chocolatier does. However, they do not make actual chocolate they use to make those products, which is what most consumers believe. In a similar way, a baker doesn’t normally make the flour they use to make breads and pastries (although there are a few rare instances of this today).
Again, I need to reiterate that unless you saw evidence in the chocolate shop you went to that they were making it from the cocoa bean, they are most likely a chocolatier. Does not matter how big or small, how artisan or how commercial. A small-scale artisan chocolate maker (which is what the brands I sell here are) is extremely rare, but is growing exponentially. It’s quite an exciting shift in the chocolate industry, with lots for everyone to learn. If you’re ever unsure if the chocolate shop you visit makes their chocolate from the raw cocoa bean, you need to ask that directly “do you make your own chocolate from the raw cocoa bean”. If you simply ask “do you make your own chocolate” they will likely always say yes. This is not dishonest because they do make their own chocolates, but not the chocolate. Most people who ask that question are not asking about “bean-to-bar”, so their answer is not suited to that. For most of our lives, that was what a chocolatier did. Now, people are starting to make the actual chocolate from the cocoa bean, and this is very rare. This is why there are terms like “bean-to-bar” or “Chocolate maker” to distinguish those from chocolatiers. It’s not to say one is above the other at all. They are two facets of the chocolate industry.
Imagine a city with many chocolatiers who buy various brands of chocolate (Callebaut, Cacao Barry, Valrhona) and are popular and doing well. One day, a new chocolate shop opens up, but this time it is a bean-to-bar chocolate maker. The prices for their chocolate are double or triple that of the other shops due to the price of the beans and the tremendous amount of work it takes just to make their main ingredient. Most consumers would not understand the difference, and even if they slightly did, would most likely not appreciate the work and skill involved. Therefore, these sorts of chocolate shops, chocolate makers, need to let the customer know why and how they are different, which is why they need to clarify they are a chocolate maker, not a chocolatier. This is also why the term “bean-to-bar” maker is used, because they are trying to find a quick way to describe what they do. Chocolatiers are not “bean-to-bar”, but a chocolate maker is.
Chocolate Makers
Now we come to chocolate makers. Those who do actually take the raw cocoa beans, and go through the process of chocolate making, although for most it starts at taking the post-fermented and post-tried beans and going on from there. For argument’s sake I’ll say here chocolate makers can be grouped into two categories. There are the more large scale commercial chocolate manufactures, and then there are a the small scale craft/fine/artisan chocolate makers (the ones I deal with here at Bean to Bar World).
1. Large Scale Chocolate Manufactures/Makers
For the past 100 years or so, and certainly in your lifetime, most of the world’s chocolate is pumped out by a few chocolate manufactures. These can include names you are familiar with such as Lindt, Hershey, Cadbury, but also brands like Callebaut, Cacao Barry, Ghiradelli, Belcolade and other couverture brands that are intended for chocolatiers to use. There are different degrees of quality with all these brands listed here, but none of them are really “fine” chocolate in the way I represent fine chocolate here on this website. Of course, those manufactures will disagree, and so may so of you reading. I will say that they are not terrible, but mediocre at best. When you’ve tried the whole spectrum of chocolate from around the world, you’ll begin to understand what I mean here. Some are better than others, and they produce chocolate that meets the standards of commercial chocolate. These are generally large chocolate manufactures (some gigantic, some much smaller but still large). They are indeed chocolate makers, because they take the raw cocoa beans and proceed to make chocolate out of it. They may package it and sell it directly themselves, but many also sell it wholesale for chocolatiers to use.
Think of these chocolate manufactures such as large scale brands of beer (Molson), coffee chains like Starbucks, home coffee brands like Folders, commercial cheese like Velveeta, and grocery store croissants made by an undisclosed mass manufacturer. Many people buy these foods/drinks and enjoy them. If they didn’t enjoy them, they would not be so popular, so there is a level of satisfaction from many consumers with these products. They have their place in the market for those who enjoy them. But truth be told, non of them are what the food industry would consider high quality products. They are products made to suit the palate of the masses. They generally have a mild flavour profile that pleases many and offends very few.
Now back to chocolate. The flavours of these mass produced chocolate brands mentioned above (which is by no means all encompassing) are pleasant and nice, but not very interesting to a fine chocolate connoisseur. Some brand are larger-scale than others, and some brands are better in quality than others. However, they are all generally large-scale manufactures that produce a food or drink to please the masses. Nothing too unique, but palatable for most. This is no different than coffee for instance. You can’t compare a well roasted fine coffee bean from a specialty roaster to popular coffee brands like Starbucks, Tim Hortons, or Folders. Again, you may enjoy the latter, and that’s fine, but they are not at the top of their game when it comes to coffee flavour and quality. The same is true for fine chocolate.
This mass produced chocolate is the sort of chocolate we all grew up on regardless of where in the world you live. It meets the flavour requirements of a majority of the population. Different regions will have slightly different interpretation of what chocolate should taste like (such as the famous American vs European chocolate flavour war), but when it comes to commercial chocolate they are not as different as many people think when you compare it to the full spectrum of chocolate in the world. Some scoff at the idea of enjoying a Hershey bar, and some can’t name a better brand. Many people consider Callebaut or Lindt as the best of the best when it comes to chocolate, and this couldn’t be further from the truth. Again, this is not a judgement of those who enjoy these products, but an honest informed opinion by someone who understands the entire spectrum of chocolate quality. You may enjoy these commercial chocolates, and many would agree with you. But it does not mean they use the finest cacao to make a chocolate you enjoy.
The cacao beans used is a big reason why this commercial chocolate is just mediocre at best. The beans tend to be more basic in flavour, normally have stronger bitter and astringent notes, and produce chocolate with a more typical cocoa flavour. You can think of an analogy of tomato sauce made by mass produced tomatoes that were picked green, have a very bland taste, and don’t really exemplify what a tomato can taste like. If you try and make sauce with that it may taste nice to most. However, to someone who has had tomato sauce made with incredibly flavoured tomatoes that were grown and harvested properly, maybe even grown themselves, then it will be light night and day.
2. Small-Scale Artisan/Fine/Craft Chocolate Makers
Figure 3. A picture of day 2 of a bean-to-bar chocolate making class I hosted in Vancouver. In that refiner are only two ingredients, cocoa bean and cane sugar that has been refining for 24 hours. The room sure did smell incredible.
This is what I deal with here at Bean To Bar World. Chocolate makers. More specifically I call them “bean-to-bar” chocolate makers which has more connotations than it’s literal meaning. You can read more about what I mean by that here. When you come across a small independently owned chocolate shop anywhere around the world, it is most likely a chocolatier shop as mentioned above. However, there is now a growing number (although still very rare) of bean-to-bar chocolate makers around the world. No longer are chocolate makers only very large-scale commercial producers as they have been throughout our lifetime. Now, we are beginning to see small-scale artisan bean-to-bar chocolate makers. That is, they actually do source the raw cocoa beans, roast them, grind them, and refine them into chocolate. Most of these chocolate makers are very small-scale compared to the larger chocolate brands you are more familiar with. In fact, most of these craft chocolate makers are unknown to most of the world. This is particularly why I created the world’s first Bean To Bar Chocolate Maker Map, which is now an App that you can download for free from your app store.
Think of these chocolate makers as your local artisan baker, cheese maker, or coffee roaster. Most of these chocolate makers are bean-to-bar meaning they source the raw beans and make the chocolate from scratch. From there they usually shape them into bars. Just like specialty coffee roasters, chocolate makers can source cocoa beans of different varieties grown in different countries to produce plain chocolate with very different flavour profiles due to the beans they used. A few of these makers even grow their own cacao beans, ferment them, and then roast them and grind them to turn them into chocolate. This is quite rare, but this is what may be referred to as tree-to-bar because not only are they taking the cocoa beans, but they are growing them on the trees as well.
Why is this important? Because of flavour. Not all, but most bean-to-bar chocolate makers use higher quality cacao beans that produce “plain” (unflavoured) dark or milk chocolate that is anything but plain in flavour. These chocolate bars (as the ones sold here) contain an array of interesting flavour notes that go beyond the typical “cocoa” flavour of all your commercial chocolate. You may taste notes of cookie, cinnamon, floral, red fruits, apricot, honey, caramel, etc. I’m not talking about flavourings or ingredients added to these chocolate bars. I’m talking about flavour notes that come just from the plain chocolate due to the type of bean used and the techniques used to turn it into chocolate. A simple 70% Cacaosuyo bar with only cocoa bean and sugar and nothing else can bring up flavour notes such as fruit, raisin, cookie, spice, rum, woody, and floral. How can all these flavours be in a plain dark chocolate bar? Because the cocoa beans used (and how they were processed) contained the building blocks necessary to produce those flavours! Fine chocolate really is quite fascinating once you finally get it.
If this has intrigued you, and you wish to understand more through taste, feel free to shop and brows my online shop, or consider booking a virtual chocolate tasting! You can have these tastings 1-on-1 and ask as many questions as you like, or even get some family and friends involved and learn and taste together with me, your very own professional chocolate sommelier!
The grey area between the two
And in some cases they can overlap. A chocolatier can start to make a line of bean-to-bar chocolate they make themselves and sell along their other chocolatier products. In this case they wear two hats - chocolatier and chocolate maker. Some do a good job of the chocolate making aspect, and some do not (they just have it to keep up with the trends). In the same way, many chocolate makers are moving beyond just molding their chocolate into bars and starting to get more creative. Many have to take on the many skills of a chocolate maker if they want to use their own chocolate to ganaches, truffles, bonbons, and so forth.