By: Gusde, Class 9
On 17 January 2020, Class 9 IGCSE Business had a trip to Pod Chocolate to learn the steps of becoming a successful person/businessman. Toby, the owner of Pod chocolate kindly invited us to come visit the chocolate factory.
The road trip to the factory was quite long with sharp turns and small roads, but it was worth the wait with a great experience on the trip. After we arrived at the factory we were greeted by Pak Toby with a bright white smile across his face, he brought us to the cacao plantation behind the factory where we analysed the tree in detail with its characteristics and traits. Pak Toby said that these trees have to be in certain conditions to thrive and to produce its cacao pods, growing them in a tropical island such as Bali would be a very suitable place for the tree to grow. Inside the pods are small white pulp clustered together. The pulp was covered with a thick white substance and it has a tangy but sweet taste with a slight floral flavour.
After looking at the cacao trees, Pak Toby took us to the process of making these chocolates. Pak Toby used two ways to make the pulps to cacao nibs, the first method is by fermenting pulps and the second method is by roasting the pulps. The cacao nibs were crunchy, dry and unsweet. After the process of roasting the nibs, they are broken down to smaller pieces that will be melted later on.
We were all assigned different ingredients and toppings and also different ratios of milk, dark, and white chocolate, all depending on the chocolate we decided to make beforehand. The toppings given were all very unique from each other, with its own distinctive taste. The toppings range all the way from nuts such as cashews and almonds, all the way to rosella flowers. Everyone had fun during our chocolate making process, the room was filled with laughter as chocolate were being mass produced left and right by students. After everyone had finished designing their very own chocolate bar, it is then put inside the freezer for roughly an hour just so that it may cool and become solid. In the meantime, students were allowed to buy chocolates in the pod shop and were given some leisure time to rest. As the chocolates finished cooling and finally became solid, we were allowed to take them home as souvenirs.
