The Cacao Workshop – Part 1: Stone Ground

"Slowly," said Mateo. "Press, and roll. Press, and roll."

"My arms hurt."

"Good. That is the stone doing its work."

Lucia laughed, wiped a lock of hair from her face with the back of her wrist and kept grinding. The workshop was a sunlit courtyard room with a tiled floor and a long wooden table, and on it sat a heavy slanted stone warmed by a small charcoal fire underneath. The air smelled of roasting beans, cinnamon and burnt sugar. Bright flowers tumbled over the courtyard wall.

Lucia, thirty-three, a food journalist from Mexico City, was writing a feature about traditional chocolate. Mateo, thirty-six, the maker, was lean and quick with ink-black hair, a white apron and a way of wandering round the table like a man at home in the world.

"Everyone wants a machine," he said. "But this grinds it differently. It keeps the grain."

"I can feel that. It's like the paste is waking up."

"Yes! That is exactly it." He was delighted. "You have good hands, Lucia."

By the third day she had stopped taking notes. They roasted beans in a clay pan, cracked and winnowed the shells, ground and blended and tasted, tasted, tasted. They argued gently about sugar. They laughed at her chocolate-smeared notebook. Evenings, they sat in the courtyard with cups of thick hot chocolate whipped to foam, and the stars came out above the bougainvillea.

"What will you write?" asked Mateo.

"That the maker is very patient. And that the journalist is not entirely objective."

"No?"

"I haven't been objective since Tuesday."

Mateo set down his cup. "Lucia, may I say something that is not about chocolate?"

"Please."

"I would like to kiss you."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Tempered.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Tempered.