Discovery: Pipiltin Cocoa

The symbolic orange logo is hard to miss when you pass your way through Barito area at Jakarta Selatan. Inside it is a two-stories chocolatier and dessert cafe that has undergone a rigorous process of scouting and roasting the best chocolate beans before it makes its way to tantalize your taste buds. (Read through their Bean to Bar Process here)

Pipiltin Cocoa was founded by brother and sister duo, Irfan Helmi and Tissa Aunilla. Their Bean to Bar process offers a range of well-plated dessert menus and single origin chocolate that were developed overtime with farmers cooperation in both Aceh and Bali.

We talked with part owner Tissa Aunilla about Pipiltin Cocoa’s values and why we think Tulisan shares the same ideals in highlighting Indonesia’s wealthy resources.

Where do you source your chocolate from?

We take our cocoa seeds from a farmer cooperation in Aceh and in Bali. Before it reaches us here in Pipiltin, it goes through these three processes: Growing, Drying, and Fermentation to extract the complexity of its flavors.

What was the aim of establishing Pipiltin Cocoa?

I was reading the news and found out that Indonesia is the third largest country in the world to export cocoa beans. Whenever we travel abroad, we often bring back chocolate gifts from Belgium or France. But when you look into it, the chocolate they make are normally exported from Indonesia. Cocoa can only be grown tropical countries. The number one exporter is Ghana, second being Ivory Coast, and Indonesia is the third. It’s impossible to nurture cocoa beans in four season countries.

After acquiring those information, I realized I wanted to make something of my own.  So my brother Irvan and I, started researching and found out that in America had what they call as a bean-to-bar concept. Simply because Americans are great consumers of chocolate. Statistically in America one person would consumer five kilograms of chocolate in a year. Compare that to Indonesia, which is only 0.7 ounce per year. It is relatively low.

So even though we wanted to apply the bean-to-bar concept here, we realized we had to start from desserts and hope it can increase people’s interest in chocolate.

Who is involved in the making of Pipiltin Cocoa?

There is my bother Irvan and me. Before we opened this place, I wanted to learn about about the chocolate process. So I went to take a short course about chocolate in Swiss. Whereas, my bother is more of a coffee enthusiast, he is one of the owners of Anomali Coffee. At Pipiltin, he is involved in sourcing the quality chocolate beans.

How did you come up with these varieties of deconstructed dessert menu?

When we started we had to find something unique to sell. People think we are selling molecular gastronomy dishes where in fact it’s just the plating of our desserts. The only molecular thing on our menu is probably the foam we infuse in one our dishes. I would say our display is more Avant Garde.

What was the biggest challenge in opening Pipiltin?

Finding the quality chocolate beans because the fermented kinds are not readily available in the market. There are two kinds of chocolate available, Covertures, which is the kind that has high chocolate content, and Compound, where the chocolate oil is replaced by vegetable oil. You can tell the difference when consuming the two. Covertures has complex layers in its taste, there are hints of sweetness, sour, and bitterness. Whereas compound chocolate simple melts in your mouth because of the oil it contains although it is less rich in nature.

We normally have a monthly chocolate tasting event here in Pipiltin so people would know how to differentiate the different kinds of chocolate available.

What else do you want to explore in the future?

We want to focus on retail by making offering our own variety of chocolate flavors. Currently, we are in the process of making the package of our chocolate bar and would want to sell them soon.

For more information about the chocolate process and monthly chocolate tasting visit, there website at: www.pipiltincocoa.com.

Pipiltin Cocoa
Jl. Barito 2 No. 5 Kebayoran Baru
Jakarta Selatan 12160
021-72800011

– Athina Ibrahim