From Bean to The Finest Chocolate in The World | Belgian Chocolate Tour

Hello! A nice sunny afternoon right here in Bruges and I'm standing next to the famous Minnewaterpark, a place where young couples tend to go to to share a nice praline, for instance. Admit it, it's a nice romantic setting, isn't it? Now, come to think of it, the praline was invented right here. Actually, the Flemish region is often referred to as the capital of the chocolate and that's why I'm going on a quest to find three of our finest ambassadors, people who try to innovate and have an explosion on your taste buds. We'll start off by the Chocolate Line. We could go hours and hours talking about chocolate, but to go from a cocoa bean to a praline in a nice box to give as a present, there's a whole process that finds place in between that and to witness this process, I've come to the Chocolate Line, owned by famous chocolatier Dominic Persona. Not to talk to him, but to talk to the next generation, Julius. Let's go and have a look. So, a small layer of tempered cocoa butter. So, you use mainly natural colors? Yeah, we try to make all our colors ourselves. If we dry raspberries, we put it in a dehydrator and then we mix it to make a powder. This, we mix it with the tempered cocoa butter and then you can have a really nice, bright red. So, the Belgian chocolatiers, they thrive on quality. The basic product has to be good and that's why you, here at the Chocolate Line, you even have your own plantations. We have a plantation in Mexico, Yucatan, and we have one in Virunga National Park, Africa. Why was it so important to have your own plantation? Because then you can control all the different steps in the production process. You can control the fermentation, the amount of how you dry the beans, how you peel them. So, it's really important to control all those steps. Would you be able to say that that is the art of the Belgian chocolatiers, that they really know how to refine this paste and make sure that it's really smooth? Really silky, really smooth, really fine of taste. We roast on a lower temperature, so you really feel the aroma of passion fruit, banana, lime, and that's for me the goal. The smell is amazing. So, these ones are from Mexico and these ones are from our plantation in Africa, Virunga National Park. How can you tell the difference? You smell it when you crack one open. The thing is, I can already smell chocolate in this. Indeed, that's the weird thing. That's the start point. We grow only a creole porcelain bean and it's a white bean. Most of the chocolate beans are purple inside, but the white beans are like the most high class, the most aroma, the most flavorful beans. So, what happens next? You grind them. Afterwards, they get in this machine that will separate the skin and the cocoa nib. The cocoa nib will get in this machine together with sugar. You grind it, you add a small amount of extra cocoa butter to make the emulsion. Afterwards, you raise the temperature to 45 degrees, let the temperature drop to 28-29 to have a perfect tempered chocolate, to have really shiny end product. Waltzing is one of the most important things. Important, yes. For aroma development and smoothness when you're biting a chocolate. Who came up with the idea to do such a thing? It was the Incas who started with the process. First, they grabbed the cocoa nibs and they grind it on a metate together with sugar and blood from their tongue to offer to the gods. So, this was the start point of making chocolate. So, where are we going now? Alright, I'm going to take you to the test kitchen where we do all development of chocolates. So, these are my babies. This is what I'm working on at the moment. This is miles away from what I know from a chocolatier. This is miles away from what your dad does. I like to have really cool designs and flavor combinations that are not usual and not everybody will like. So, you might want to try this one, the freshly cut grass bonbon. You weren't lying. So, it's a ganache made with yuzu, green apple, freshly cut grass and lemon zest. Congratulations Julius and I think we're good for the future. I'm gonna try another one. And now we've moved from the city of Bruges to the city of Antwerp. Why you ask? Simply because this is the world capital of chocolate, Belgian chocolate. Actually, the first chocolate factory in the world was built right here in Antwerp. You can learn all about it right there at Chocolate Nation. The first thing you notice when entering Chocolate Nation is this sign right here. Dear Belgian chocolate, I love you. Catherine, you guys claim to be the biggest chocolate museum in the world, but are you? Well, I'm going to give a little bit of a twist to that because actually we're the largest Belgian chocolate museum in the world. Okay. And yes, we offer everything you need to know about Belgian chocolate. So, shall we go in? Let's do that. Why is this Port of Antwerp today so important for cacao? Well, it's the largest storage port of cacao beans in the whole world. So, it plays a really important factor. You see that in Europe, we eat a lot of chocolate. People in Flanders, they eat about an average of six kilos of chocolate every year. Only six kilos? Let's try and put that average bit up. What do you think? Okay. Ben, there are a lot of traditions linked to Belgian chocolate. So, for example, we give chocolate for Valentine. At Easter, we have Sinterklaas, which is a special day for the children, and at Christmas. And when we go to eat at people's homes, we mostly bring a box of chocolate instead of flowers. Yeah. Who said that? Life's like a box of chocolate. I think he was right, by the way. So, just how important is this chocolate for the Belgian people and the Belgian industry? For example, we have Charles Neuhaus, who is the inventor of the Belgian praline. That was a Belgian invention? Yes, back in 1912, actually. Okay. So, it's already a long time ago. Guy and Liliane, they formed the brand Gillian, which is also very well known all over the world. Yeah. He was a chocolatier, but she invented the thorns. The seahorse and the shells. Yes, absolutely. I love those. What other Belgian inventions in the world of chocolate do we have? We have lots. I will show you. So, this craftsmanship, this savoir-faire, what has it led to worldwide for the Belgian chocolate? For example, in Japan, Belgian chocolatiers are treated like heroes. Really? Like the big football stars. And I think it all has to do with the fact that definitely in Japan, people don't buy a whole box of chocolate, but they buy one little praline. Really? It's so exquisite. It's so precious. The white chocolate house, what does that have to do with chocolate? Chocolatier Horsens from Antwerp, he is already delivering chocolate for many years now to the tradition. So, there you have it, Catherine, your box of chocolates. Yes. Well, this is a Balotin, an invention of the wife of Jean Neuhaus back in 1915. She just wanted to have a box where she could put in the precious pralines so that they didn't get damaged. Wow. So, don't call it a box of chocolates. This is a Balotin. The Magnum, also a Belgian invention. Did you know they sell one billion of these worldwide every year? This is the Ruby chocolate, an invention by Callebaut and dates from 2017. So, it's a very recent innovation, but it just goes to show that Belgian chocolate is constantly innovating and renewing and finding new things to make sure we have a sweet future ahead of us. Everybody in Belgium loves to be involved with Belgian chocolate. We have special schools that train chocolatiers to make the finest pralines in the world. So, many chocolatiers in the world were formed by Belgian expertise. Absolutely. Wow. So, this is the future generation. It is, it is. Do you guys like Belgian chocolate? Did you know that when you eat a bar of dark chocolate, your body instantly starts to produce dopamine, the happiness hormone? So, it has been proven eating chocolate will make you happy. So, maybe life really is like a box of chocolates, but with Belgian chocolate, you do know what you're going to get. Mr. Joost. Hey, Ben. Welcome again. Thank you so much. I've heard so much about you. I've heard that you're the best pâtissier in 2013, best chocolatier in 2020. So, you've got big shoes to fill, but when I see these little jewels here in front of me, I must say. Thank you very much. They're amazing. We have here all the pastry, here we have some macaroons, and there we have all the chocolates that we have. Come in and I will show you how we make these things. I'm very eager to find out. Come in. Everybody starts with chocolate. Every chocolatier starts with chocolate. Yeah. How can you make a difference? Why did you get elected to be the best chocolatier of 2020? For the first thing, it starts with good ingredients. If you have good ingredients, then you can make a nice product. Then you start by looking, by finding some real good chocolates that have a nice melting profile in your mouth, and then you combine them together. It's also that they have to look good. You have to have a nice assortment of all the chocolates together with different kinds of tastes, with fruit, with nuts, with chocolate, with dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate. You really have to look for that the palette is really perfect. You're a guy who wants to offer the best to his clients, so maybe not go and look for the most exquisite or the most crazy combinations. No, no. Just keep it simple, but make sure it's the best you have to offer. Yeah, because simplicity is not simple. You have to directly say, oh yes, this is this is what I like, this is what I wanted to taste, and if you taste it, you're really like, oh yeah. When a client comes into our shop, he has to be happy because look, look what I have, look what I have. I really have a nice box of chocolates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now what I'm looking at here is a boy who was interested in chocolate from a very young age. I went to school when I was young in Bruges, it's a really nice school of bakery and chocolate and everything. And then after that, I worked in different kind of pastry shops and chocolate shops in Brussels. Two and a half years I was the pastry chef, the main pastry chef in the restaurant Van Cleve. It's a resort, three Michelin restaurants. Yeah. And there I learned what the taste should be like, how to combine different kind of tastes to have one product, to really put the focus on the ingredient and the end product. Why would you say that the craftsmanship in Flanders, in terms of gastronomy, is so high, such high level? Because we like to eat. Exactly, that's the best explanation. Yeah, we have already knowledge because it's already a long history and we just make it better and better and better during the years. So it's normal that we get to a high level of every year we want to make it better and better and better. So Joost, what do we have here? So we have all different kind of chocolates. I really want to let you taste one. This is one with our logo on it. It's dark chocolate ganache with the 70% of chocolate inside. Really smooth. It's a Madagascar chocolate with a little bit of vanilla inside. So it's really a nice smooth ganache with a nice chocolate taste. So it's really something nice to start with. So we really want to put all the focus on the texture and on the taste and not really on the chocolate that's on the outside. Basically this is the chocolate taste, pure chocolate. Madagascar. Refined this texture. Yeah and it's also staying a little bit in your mouth. So you have really chocolate that stays a little bit behind. So we have chocolates that are made in a mold and chocolates with chocolate around. So we have two different kind of chocolates and you will see it's with two different kind of layers inside. Praline of peanuts with a salted caramel. So you think about the experience when somebody puts this in their mouth. First they're gonna have this one, then they're having this, different stages. So people they don't eat it a whole box in one time. They really eat, they take one chocolate, the taste of it they are like oh yeah what's this what this. So it's a little bit discovery. People are really fond of your hazelnut praline. Yeah we make it from from scratch from the hazelnuts. We really look for the best hazelnuts that there are. They are from Piemonte. We let them in, we roast them and then we caramelize them and then we have a caramelized hazelnut and then we mix the caramelized hazelnut to a praline. There's a crunch. So you add what? That's the caramelization. Really? Of the nuts. So the pores of caramel. That's the first time I have praline with a crunch in it. I love that. Wow. So you see it comes into your mouth and you really have the caramelization of the hazelnuts that comes and it stays also in your mouth. Yeah. It's not away. No. I think in five minutes it'll be there and that's what I find really nice. So I really wanted to let you taste the pastry that we have. Look at this. Thank you so much. Thank you. So we have the combination of dark chocolate and the citruses. You are a pastry chef but you're a chocolatier. This is where they are both combined and come together right? Exactly. Wow. Is this your way of being innovative? It's an innovation to make it a little bit more modern. To make it the way we want it to look like. To combine it to a really nice product and to put it also in a shop that goes well with all the products. For me it's all the things that come together. Exactly. It's really important when people taste it that you go from top to bottom. Okay. So enjoy it. Thank you so much. Like it? Yeah. You take the heritage, you innovate it with this type of stuff. Congratulations and thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Excellent job and that concludes our little culinary trip through the world of chocolate. And remember the best things in life are sweet.