From Betsy Malloy,
Your Guide to California Travel.
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Sometimes "the idea of chocolate clouds the taste of chocolate" says Robert Steinberg, co-founder of Scharffenberger Chocolate Maker as I meet him in a chocolate-scented factory dedicated to making "chocolate that tastes like cacao beans". Scharffen Berger is a boutique chocolate maker, the first new American chocolate company in fifty years when it opened, one of just a few in the country who import, roast and grind their own beans.

When I first met Steinberg in 2001, our tour began amidst burlap bags full of cacao beans. Nowadays it starts in a small room in their Berkeley, California factory and is led by enthusiastic employees.

Scharffenberger chocolate begins its life in as many as ten tropical locations as far-flung as Madagascar, Indonesia, Trinidad and Papua New Guinea where small farmers grow, harvest and ferment the beans. At the factory, the beans are roasted in a machine resembling a large coffee roaster, then winnowed to produce "nibs" - crunchy bits of chocolate-to-be, with a complex, dry almost-burnt flavor.

The smell of chocolate is everywhere. As the nibs are crushed, cocoa butter is released and mixture liquefies. After more mixing, amid stirring and bubbling noises, the cocoa mixture is transformed into bars and bricks, then lovingly hand-wrapped.

In pursuit of pure chocolate flavor, there are only four ingredients in Scharffenberger chocolate: cocoa beans, Tahitian and Bourbon vanilla, sugar (pure sweetness) and lecithin. About lecithin: did you ever wonder why this strange substance is in every chocolate you encounter? It's an integral part of the chocolate-making process, allowing the beans to be be ground very finely.

Scharffenberger's chocolate is very dark and semi-sweet. It is sold in bars for eating out of hand, but is also popular with both professional and home chefs.

Tours are offered at their Berkeley factory. You can find Scharffenberger chocolate in many stores. And - if you can bear to wait - Robert says that dark chocolate is a bit like fine wine. It tastes best if you age it. So, put that chocolate bar away and come back in a couple of months!

Scharffenberger is now owned by Artisan Confections Company, but their chocolate and the tour are still the same.