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My name's Benoît Nihant
I make chocolate from cocoa beans
The adventure of our chocolate-making business began
in a garage
at the back of my parents' place. That's where the first recipes of Benoît Nihant
chocolatier were born
My dream and
My aim was to be able to produce chocolate directly from the bean
What's hard in my profession
is finding cocoa beans of genuinely high quality
99% of the beans grown and
harvested on our planet are for industrial use
We look for something that is completely different
The beans that we select are beans that have never been mixed with other types of beans
They come from forgotten vines -- wild vines, if you like
The reason why we look for these special cacao plants is
simply because they are native to the land
Their specific feature is that they really do produce exceptional flavours of a kind
almost forgotten today
And from where they grow, right through to making the chocolate itself
they are never mixed with the harvest from any other plantation
We don't seek out rareness for the sake of its rarity
we look for things that have flavours that you won't find anywhere else
With each harvest, nature has worked its magic
on the cacao plant
and the bean will always taste a little bit different
Each step of the process - roasting,
conching and all of the other stages that go to make up manufacturing
have to be redesigned and rethought based on the bean
and its specific features at the time it arrives
This is wonderful for us
because with each harvest and each batch that arrives in our workshop
we have to reconsider our recipe
and the way we are going to
transform the bean into chocolate
It's in that process where we really find the heart of our passion