Diamond Chocolate Factory (makers of Jouvay)

Diamond Chocolate Factory is a Factory located in Victoria, St Mark, Grenada, and is the home of Jouvay chocolate. You can take a tour of the factory, where you will learn about the process of how they make their chocolate. You can also check out the gift shop, that has a variety of chocolate bars, cocoa tea balls, cocoa butter, and more. There’s even a chocolate tasting section.

While visiting Diamond Chocolate Factory, I did all of the above. I started with the chocolate making tour, where a guide showed and explained the chocolate making process step by step. Seeing all of the machines that are used and how tedious the process is, was pretty intriguing.

After walking through the factory, I went to the gift shop and headed straight to the tasting section. Being able to taste some of the chocolates before buying, helped me alot because the one I was originally considering buying, I didn’t like. I ended up buying the cocoa bar with nibs, which was my favorite from the tasting.

Chocolate making steps directly from the chocolate factory

Fermentation
Drying
Sorting
Roasting
Winnowing
Grinding
Mixing
Refining
Conching
Tempering

Fermentation

What happens during the fermentation process?

During the Fermenation process, the sugars in the pulp is turned to alcohol and runs off as sweat. Acid gets inside of the beans and kills the beans. Then the bitter taste of the beans are converted to chocolate flavours.

Drying

What happens during the drying process?

During the drying process, the beans are in the sun for 7days. The beans go from 50% to 7.5% moisture content, and the color changes from purple to brown.

Sorting

What happens during the sorting process?

During the sorting process, the beans are cleaned, inspected, sorted into different sizes, and sanitized for micro-organisms.

Roasting

What happens during the roasting process?

During the roasting process, the beans enter the roasting chamber and are roasted for about 45 minutes. The moisture in the beans change from 7% to 2% and the brown color develops.

Winnowing

What happens during the winnowing process?

During the winnowing process, the roasted beans are transferred to a winnower. This machine cracks the beans and separates the shells from the cracked beans (cocoa nibs).

Grinding

Whats happens during the grinding process?

During the grinding process, the nibs are ground to 100 microns “cocoa liquor.” Which is a thick paste and has no alcohol. The aroma begins to release as the heat liquefies butter.

Mixing

What happens during the mixing process?

During the mixing process, the ground beans are mixed with sugar in melangeur to form a cocoa paste. This is the point where different formulations of the chocolates are made.

Refining

What happens during the refining process?

During the refining process, the chocolate paste is refined through 5 rollers, and the particle size is reduced from more than 100 microns to below 20. After refining, we have sweet smooth liquid chocolate.

Conching

What happens during the conching process

During the conching process, the desired chocolate flavor and texture is developed. The conche machine mixes the chocolate to evenly distribute cocoa butter within the chocolate.

Tempering

What happens during the tempering process?

During the tempering process, the cooling and reheating of the chocolate is done carefully. This process gives chocolate it’s shiny surface and the “snap” when broken. After being tempered the chocolate is poured into molds and cooled at low temperatures, creating hardened and shiny chocolate.

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