Chocolate Made in Plain Sight

Why Transparency in Chocolate Production Changes Everything

You pay more for craft chocolate, and the bar in your hand explains none of it. Sofia has makers who care - Flow Cacao, a family-owned roastery, works with single-origin cacao from Latin America and specialises in drinking chocolate - but there is no factory in the city you can walk through and watch it happen. In Almonte, Ontario, there is.

This is Hummingbird Chocolate Maker, and the transparency is the point.

Why Chocolate Stayed Opaque

Coffee culture has normalised the roastery visit. In Sofia, you can watch beans tumble in a drum at DABOV Specialty Coffee or catch the roasting schedule at smaller operations around the city. The connection between green bean and brewed cup has become part of how specialty coffee communicates its value.

Chocolate never followed the same path. The bean-to-bar movement exists, but production remains largely invisible. Most consumers have never seen cacao beans sorted, never watched a slow roast develop, never heard the stone grinders that run for days.

Hummingbird, located at 476 Ottawa Street just outside Ottawa, built its entire model around the opposite principle. The café, store, and factory share the same space. Tours take visitors through the production floor. The hot chocolate you drink comes from beans you can watch being processed.

Hand-Sorting, Slow-Roasting, Stone-Grinding

The process begins with hand-sorting. Every batch passes through human hands before roasting. Defective beans, broken pieces, foreign matter: all removed before heat ever touches the cacao. Industrial chocolate production skips this step or automates it. The difference shows up in the final flavour, where a single off bean can introduce bitterness that no amount of sugar can mask.

Slow-roasting follows. Where industrial operations run beans through high-heat systems designed for volume, Hummingbird roasts at lower temperatures for longer periods. The extended time allows flavour compounds to develop complexity rather than simply caramelising sugars.

Stone-grinding completes the transformation. The melangers, granite wheels turning in granite basins, run for extended periods to refine texture and develop the final flavour profile.

Awards as Evidence

Hummingbird has accumulated over 140 international awards, including the Golden Bean Award from the Academy of Chocolate in the UK. The recognition matters, but not as a trophy count.

Awards from bodies like the Academy function as external validation that the slow-made approach produces results trained palates can distinguish from industrial alternatives. The real achievement is that a visitor can taste the chocolate, watch the process, and understand why the two are connected.

What Transparency Costs

What Hummingbird does is still unusual. The bean-to-bar movement has grown, but very few makers will let a stranger stand beside the roaster and the grinders while the work is happening.

Фото: Виктор Младенов

This is not a criticism. Building a production facility that welcomes visitors requires space, capital, and a local market willing to pay for the experience. But the Hummingbird approach offers a template. Transparency is not a marketing gimmick. It is a teaching tool. Visitors who watch chocolate being made leave understanding why craft chocolate costs more, tastes different, and matters.

The Taste of Knowing

The hot chocolate at Hummingbird is, according to the makers, the best you will ever taste. That is a bold claim. But it rests on something verifiable: you can watch the chocolate being made, ask questions about the beans, understand the process that produced the cup in your hands.

The bar is half the story. The other half is a room in Almonte with its door open, and whoever walks through it goes home holding both.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is bean-to-bar chocolate?

A: Bean-to-bar chocolate is made by a single producer who controls the entire process from raw cacao beans to finished chocolate. This differs from most chocolate makers who buy pre-processed cocoa mass. The approach allows for greater control over flavour development and origin transparency.

Q: Why does hand-sorting cacao beans matter for chocolate quality?

A: Hand-sorting removes defective beans, broken pieces, and foreign matter before roasting. A single off bean can introduce bitterness or unpleasant flavours that affect the entire batch. Industrial production often skips or automates this step, prioritising speed over flavour purity.

Q: Where can I find bean-to-bar chocolate makers in Sofia?

A: Flow Cacao is a family-owned cacao roastery in Sofia working with single-origin beans from Latin America, specialising in drinking chocolate and cacao rituals. Full factory-tour experiences like Hummingbird's model remain rare in Bulgaria, though the craft chocolate scene is developing.