Simply put, chocolate is one of the most important substances in the known universe. To say that I love chocolate is an understatement, and I know I’m not alone. You know you love chocolate. And everyone you know loves chocolate too. Or at a minimum, they don’t hate it. But what do you actually know about chocolate? And what do you actually know about the way that fine chocolates are made by a chocolatier—or actually, it’s chocolatier, if we’re to believe Melissa Crandley.

I stopped into Mecha Chocolate, one of Melissa’s stores, and went a bit buck-wild with what I saw and purchased. Raspberry almond praline ganaches, Japanese matcha ganaches, smoked habanero sea salt caramels, lavender vanilla caramels, and a dozen more delights beyond those.

But aside from a hefty bag full of chocolates… I also walked away with an exquisite curiosity. How are these little, finely decorated squares of power-packed flavor actually made? And how much fun is it to come up with the ideas for them? So I drove out to Melissa’s sparkling clean south Jersey production facility and we talked: about how’s it’s actually pronounced Mecha and not Mecha, what hand-dipping is, how to balance a raspberry ganache, banana flavoring, the horribleness of Circus Peanuts, and a whole lot more.

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