We are, it’s fair to say, a country with a sweet tooth. Whether it’s dark, milk or white, in a bar or box or turned into desserts and drinks, chocolate is everywhere; lining supermarket shelves, on most restaurant menus and very much at home in our cupboards. Our love for it is never more obvious than now, at Easter, when chocolate eggs fill the shops, though every year we Brits are estimated to each eat around three bars a week. Despite its popularity, we’re willing to bet most of us don’t fully understand how it's made, an intricate process which begins, of course, with the cocoa tree (the scientific name for which translates to ‘food of the gods’ – we can’t argue with that).

Luxury desserts experts Pots & Co has, in fact, found that 69% of us have no idea how chocolate is made, despite one in ten of us eating it every day. They know the process inside out and, since the business was founded by chef Julian Dyer in 2012, their Michelin-trained chefs have used high quality, sustainable ingredients in all its premium desserts, from Cornish sea salt in its salted caramel and freshly-squeezed juice in its lemon and lime possets to the cocoa in its pots of 70% chocolate ganache. Its chocolate is single-origin, meaning it is made from one variety of cocoa bean grown in a particular region, and Fino de Aroma, a grading set by the International Cocoa Organisation which recognises its particularly exquisite aroma and puts it in the top 8% of cocoa in the world.

At Pots & Co’s farm in Necocli, on the Caribbean coast, where its Trinitario cocoa is made, sustainability underpins production; its family-owned supplier Luker Chocolate works directly with farmers to make sure they are not only paid fairly, but also supported to grow the best, most ethical cocoa they can. It runs The Chocolate Dream programme, which launches projects to make positive change in farmers’ communities, improving local infrastructure, education and culture. Through that, Pots & Co has set up its Empowering Dreams initiative, which trains, mentors and empowers local entrepreneurs. It all aims to make positive change for farming families, while keeping cocoa production sustainable and successful. After all, it’s certainly not easy work – cocoa is notoriously temperamental, and farmers are encouraged to grow three crops; cocoa, a fruit and a hardwood. The fast-growing fruit attracts insects to pollinate the cocoa and gives farmers a harvest while the cocoa matures, while the hardwood provides shade, a wind barrier and a third income.

Rugby ball-shaped, vibrantly coloured and up to fourteen inches long, ripe cocoa pods are a unique sight, with as many as eighty growing along the trunk and biggest branches of mature cocoa trees. Farmers harvest the pods by knocking them off the tree, before scooping out the seeds, or cocoa beans, and pulp inside. Then, it’s time for fermentation, a crucial part of chocolate-making which unlocks the beans’ flavour potential. The beans and pulp are stacked on top of each other and turned every day, triggering a natural fermentation process which takes up to eight days, stopping before the seeds begin to germinate. Next, farmers dry the beans on concrete or wooden slabs – while this step might need the help of fire in countries with rainforest climates, in Colombia farmers are usually able to let the sun do the work.