Sweet Chronicles from the Factory: when Cocoa Rebels

Cocoa also Has a Bad Temper

Sweet (and slightly bitter) chronicles from the heart of Abuela Ili.

There are days at Abuela Ili when everything seems to run smoothly. The machines are working, the aroma of chocolate fills the air, and you feel almost like an alchemist turning chaos into sweetness.

But Suddenly… That Rebellious Chocolate Appears, the one that Comes Wanting a Fight.

You put it in the tempering machine, do everything as always, measure, control, pray a little, and when you start taking out the trays… bam! Four trays, five, ten… all with tempering stains.

For those who aren’t in the know: those little spots are nothing more than cocoa butter blooming, a poorly done crystallization. In layman’s terms: the chocolate is tasty, yes, but visually it looks like it suffered a nervous breakdown. It doesn’t shine, it becomes opaque, and of course, you look at it with that mixture of anger and resignation that only someone who has spent an entire day behind a capricious tempering machine understands.

And that’s when the drama begins. Because you already had your head full of other things—suppliers, customers, invoices, whether the stock is right, whether the slush machine jammed again—and just that day the cocoa decides to be in a bad mood.

And You Ask Yourself: why Today?

What did I do to you, chocolate, that you come at me with this? I treated you with care, I melted you slowly, I gave you your time, your temperature, your turns.

We all look at each other in the factory, each with their conspiratorial theory: whether the thermometer is lying, whether the air is humid, whether Mercury is in retrograde. And in the meantime, the trays keep coming out with those spots that seem to be telling us “don’t underestimate me, humans.”

But then, when we get over our nervous breakdown and take a breather, we see it clearly. People love Abuela Ili not only for the shine of the chocolate, but for the soul behind it. For the effort, the care, the craziness we experience every day so that each bar has something of us.

And yes, sometimes the cocoa gets up on the wrong side of the bed, like any of us. So that’s it: if one day you see a bar with a strange mood, think that it is part of the family. A little grumpy, a little imperfect… but ours.

And like all families, it is loved the same.

Mauricio