Micro-batch chocolate

Micro-batch describes production at a scale where a batch may be a few dozen kilograms and a lot may be one fermentation from one farm. The claim is unregulated and unaudited like every other in this group.

What it does describe accurately is a set of constraints. Very small production makes winnowing inefficient, refining slow, and consistency between batches hard — the same lot handled twice can differ. Those constraints are why micro-batch chocolate is expensive and why it is more variable than industrial chocolate, in both directions.

THERE IS NO THRESHOLD, which is the first thing to know about the word. Nobody has defined how small a micro-batch is, so a large manufacturer's limited seasonal run and a maker whose entire annual output would fit in a domestic kitchen carry the same term on the wrapper. Neither is misusing it, because there is nothing to misuse.

AND IT IS OFTEN A DESCRIPTION OF EQUIPMENT RATHER THAN A DECISION. A maker with one small melanger produces micro-batches because that is what the machine holds. Presented as a philosophy, it is frequently a constraint being named well — which does not make it false, and does mean it predicts less about intent than it appears to.

WHAT IT GENUINELY PREDICTS IS VARIATION, and that is worth knowing before buying twice. Batch-to-batch difference at this scale is expected rather than a fault: a different fermentation, a slightly different roast, a refiner run a few hours longer. A bar that was extraordinary may not repeat, and the maker is usually not able to make it repeat. Readers who found something they liked and could not find it again have met this, and it is the honest answer to why.

IT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT QUALITY IN EITHER DIRECTION. Small scale removes the quality-control apparatus that catches a bad batch as well as the averaging that flattens a good one, so the distribution is wider at both ends. Bad micro-batch chocolate is common, and it reaches shelves for the same reason the good kind does — there is nobody in the building whose job is to stop it.

Unrelated to composition.