Nat's Blog

English Toffee? Buttercrunch toffee? Butter Toffee? What's the deal?
English Toffee? Buttercrunch toffee? Butter Toffee? What's the deal?
Why all the different nomenclatures for the confectionery made of butter and sugar cooked to hard crack? What do you call it? Toffee or buttercrunch?  Read on for my take... Read more...
A post about tempering and quality checks nine months post manufacturing.
A post about tempering and quality checks nine months post manufacturing.
A bar that can't stand a little of life's fluctuations -- uncontrolled temperatures, mishandling, sore feelings -- a bar that was not tempered to achieve maximum crystallization; well, that bar... Read more...
What Small Batch Crafted Means At Xoconat
What Small Batch Crafted Means At Xoconat
  The phrase small batch crafted gets harder and harder to quantify nowadays. So, I’ll share what “small-batch crafted” means at Xoconat.  For starters, I craft every batch of chocolate,... Read more...
Xoconat Workshops
Xoconat Workshops
What I love about teaching workshops are the questions my students ask me about cacao and chocolate. What are the best cacao growing regions? What’s the best chocolate? How does... Read more...
Know The Source. Honor It.
Know The Source. Honor It.
I am very fortunate to live in a cacao growing country. In industry speak, it's called 'at origin'. As in, from where cacao originates. This is what I have the... Read more...
On Packaging and Small Business Transparency
On Packaging and Small Business Transparency
The following is an Instagram post that received a lot of great traffic and I wanted to share it here. I’m glad my banana leaf green packaging got such positive... Read more...