How Beans Become Delicious Chocolate Bars at SF's Dandelion Chocolate

Dandelion has been making single origin, hand-crafted chocolate bars in the Mission since 2010. When they started, there were roughly 10 to 20 bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the country— now there are more like 200.

It's an involved process, from choosing beans directly from farmers to crafting the bars themselves. What sets one chocolate maker apart from another is much like what makes wines made from the same grapes so different: origins of the beans, the way farmers ferment the beans on the farm, the temperature and length of time at roasting, ratio of chocolate to sugar, and so much more. Dandelion's dedicated team does it all in their current Valencia Street location, which includes a cafe filled with drinking chocolate, baked goods, and handmade chocolates.

Take a look at how the company transforms beans into the luscious chocolate bars sold in their café.

Grid View

• Bags of unprocessed beans
• Beans are sorted by hand Workers look out for random detritus like pieces of twine or rocks mixed into the beans
• Dandelion is discerning They have a loss of 10%, higher than other comparable companies, because they discard cracked or defective beans
• Beans are cracked After roasting, beans are cracked to separate the shells from the nibs
• Beans are roasted A reengineered coffee roaster roasts the beans low and slow
• The melangers Cocoa nibs and sugar are ground together until fine, over 24 hours
• Melanged chocolate is molded into bars
• A block of untempered chocolate After melanging, the chocolate is stored in blocks until it's time to be tempered and turned into bars
• Blocks of chocolate awaiting their transformation
• Chopped blocks The blocks are broken up before tempering
• Tempering The chocolate is heated and cooled to exact specifications to make it shelf stable, give it a nice sheen, and the proper texture.
• After tempering, it's time for molding The tempered chocolate is poured into molds
• Cooling The molded chocolate is briefly cooled
• Unmolded bars, ready for wrapping
• Foiling Bars are wrapped in foil by hand
• Next up: Paper A retro wrapping machine from the 1950s applies paper
• Wrapped bars for sale in the café