Ratio Cocoa Roasters uses traditional chocolate making techniques and sources the World’s best single origin cacao beans to bring you individually flavored small batch hand crafted chocolate bars. Their cacao beans are sorted to remove any flawed beans then roasted in an antique ball roaster before being cracked & winnowed to remove the husk or shell of the bean. The cacao bean is now in small pieces called cocoa nibs. Their dark chocolate range is a mixture of these cocoa nibs and raw cane sugar (and is therefore vegan). Their milk chocolate range has two additional ingredients: whole milk powder and cocoa butter. The chocolate ranges from 45% to 100% cacao. There are no preservatives or additives. The ingredients are placed in stone grinders for a minimum of 72 hours, during which time the coarse ingredients turn into a smooth liquid. They then block and age the chocolate for a minimum of 3 weeks before it is tempered, poured into moulds then hand wrapped.

They are also a cafe, selling hot chocolates, coffees and sweet treats. They are also the only dedicated chocolate gelato store in Melbourne, with 7 different chocolate gelato on offer (2 vegan). The cafe is open Thursday and Friday, 2–10pm; Saturday, 10am–10pm; and Sunday 10am–5pm.

They also do public tours of their factory on most Fridays and Sundays. $10. Book on EventBrite.

You can read more on the following websites: Artisan Selections, Broadsheet, Good Food, Melbourne Darling, Melbourne LYF, The City Lane, and Urban List.