The Best Chefs Will Do Anything For This Chocolate
In a Nutshell
Seamus Blackley and Asher Zelig Safami produce what top chefs call the world's best chocolate in a Pasadena lab by growing cacao trees, hand-pollinating them, and running a sterile, precisely controlled three-stage fermentation that replaces traditional natural yeasts. After four years of growing, experimenting, and refining the process, they created pure cacao-sugar chocolate that Jose Andres and other elite chefs immediately endorsed, turning their side project into a commercial venture. The key takeaway is that rigorous scientific control over every variable—from tree genetics to fermentation microbes—can produce exceptional chocolate anywhere, proving that top-tier quality doesn't require traditional tropical estates.
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They called you Willy Wonka. Are we pro Willy Wonka or anti? We like Willy Wonka. They like Willy Wonka. Willy Wonka's. Okay. So, we got a little Willy Wonka situation going on in here. All right, boys. Your moment to shine has arrived. The Willy Wonka situation is this. These two men have produced what some consider to be the world's best chocolate. And they've done it here in a laboratory in Pasadena, which is not where you're supposed to produce the world's best chocolate.
In its final form, the chocolate looks like this. It's pure, unadulterated decadence. The best chefs in the world have fallen in love with it and want to buy it. And yes, we're going to learn how the chocolate is made and taste it. But first, we must get to the mad scientist behind the mad science. Can't believe you wore pants. Do you need the table for your coffee? No. Okay. I have no pride. I have no pride and no shame. Please sir, I want some more.
Seamus Blackley has been many things over his career. I'd like to ask Seamus Blackley to come out and uh give us a look. Including a physicist, an engineer, a game designer, and even a Hollywood agent. But he's best known as the father of the Xbox. I'm the guy who has to figure out how to convince everybody buy an Xbox. I get fired if Xbox games suck, which he talked Microsoft into building in 2001.
Seamus, as you will see in here, is an eccentric with big opinions. This, for example, is how he explains his life trajectory. My entire career is just one long uh tale of woe and rapid dancing in the face of failure. And this is how he explains dating and being rich. I would say the best way to pick up girls is to have a baby. Right. Yeah. Right up until they ask where you got the baby. The same thing is true of billionaires. It's like, where'd you get the money from? The money didn't appear in vacuum because you're so brilliant. Like, you got it from people.
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