Patrice Chapon – Profession, roaster of cocoa: “The secrecy in the boxes of chocolate”

Comme Obélisque and the magic potion, Patrice Chapon fell into the very young chocolate. Nothing astonishing, although he dreamed architect, so that who made chocolate in his room became… chocolate seller.

But beyond the simple craftsman impassioned by his art, the old glacier is an enchanter. For him, pleasure versifies with greediness. “I am not in the very great luxury, nor in the haute couture. My vision of the chocolate is to make greedy chocolates”. The cocoa which it factory is a direct connection with its childhood and its memories. It is thus with its image.

It is a chocolate of exception. And in what that?
Because it models each type of vine according to its desires and its inspirations.
Capon does not only make process broad beans. A such chemist, the magician who it is, works out his ideal chocolate by making his own receipts and by adjusting proportioning according to quality and of the origin of broad bean; a priceless treasure if one can find it. And it is its case! Because having a great control of the various varieties of cocoa, it is itself which selects them near the farmers and of the growers that it went to meet.

Its technique?
In choosing about thirty, to open them to check how they are inside. If they are cracked, of color brown clearly, it is very good. Once taken delivery of in its workshop of Chelles (the Seine and Marne) created in 1986, each one will be to sort with the hand. Thanks to his machines dating from last century, restored with meticulousness, the perfectionist controls all the stages of the traditional manufacturing and even that of torrefaction.

Each broad bean will be roasted at different temperatures and different stages. They then passed in a “cocoa winnows” so that their skin is removed. The grain obtained is then crushed in a “conche”, then “ground” during 48 hours so that its bitterness is preserved, while eliminating its acidity. Result: a refined chocolate, aired, of very high quality whose content of cocoa oscillates from 74 to 76%.

That they are coatings, shelves, scented fools or fluxes dressed, all these sweetened creations have jointly to be single; their characteristic being to tell a story. And yes, Patrice Chapon is also a poet. For him “the shelf incarnates dreamed to transport its desire with oneself whose square is the fragment. With this shelf, I seek much more to nourish the memories of childhood that appetites…”

The force of imaginary to awake the papillae, it had only one “chocolate dreamer there (S)” to think it…
Even packing is not randomly selected. Because before tasting itself by the papillae, the chocolate is tasted with the eyes. From where importance that Patrice Chapon grants to him. It tries to magnify it via the lithography of the old images which return to the past and thus… to childhood. It is the same for its logo. Its choice of the three small characters is not innocent since once again, it is related to the tender yearses. And yes, Patrice Chapon remains coherent until in the least completions…

What explains why the craftsman elected among the 12 best chocolate sellers in Paris by the “club of the chocolate devourers” and distinguished in 2018 from the bronze medal at the time of the “International French Cocoa Awards” for the bar White Tonka/vanilla/governs and the praline “Canela wood” is in perpetual search of revival. Then, the laboratory assistant tests, dares experiments and creates new gustatory marriages permanently. Dome of praline to smoked salt, fool blackcurrant–violet or pink praline with bays…, Patrice Chapon has limits only that of its greediness and its imagination.

Its last creation?
A bar with chocolate mousses. The idea to take again the receipt of his/her mother came to him seven years ago by inventing a concept consisting in serving as chocolate mousse in horns.  The bet of the tasted chocolate bowl with table been useful differently was dared, but it raised it. Each one of its shops from now on are equipped with it and thus proposes six varieties of foams (Peru, Ecuador, Madagascar, Venezuela, Équagha and with the almond water for the intolerant ones with lactose) in a cooled travelling window.

Thanks to him, there are no only ices which it is possible to taste all while walking. With Capon, all is pretext to melt of pleasure, even spoon in mouth…

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