TECUMSEH — Matt Cross and Elizabeth Gentry had each made careers for themselves in the culinary profession — he as a chef, she as a pastry chef — when they met in New York City.

But after they’d both worked in restaurants literally coast to coast, the couple realized they wanted to do something different with their lives. 

“After a while, you kind of burn out when you’re a chef,” Gentry said. “When you’re in fine dining, it can be just like you see on TV, which isn’t fun.”

And so Gentry, an Adrian native, and Cross, who grew up in Rochester, N.Y., decided to move closer to Gentry’s family “and take a step backwards and see what we wanted to do next,” she said.

It wasn’t long before that next step materialized: Harvest Chocolate, a “bean to bar” shop located at 110 W. Chicago Blvd. in Tecumseh. The couple makes their chocolate right onsite, from roasting the cocoa beans all the way to the finished product.

Gentry and Cross started out by renting space at the Adrian Armory to make their chocolates, then moved to their current location but only rented a small part of it.

Finally, about three years ago, they took over the whole space, which long ago was a bank but which more-recent local residents once knew as the home of The Chocolate Vault.

It was a gradual process on purpose. “We’ve always been intentional about how we wanted to grow,” Gentry said.

As a pastry chef, Gentry had long used chocolate in her creations. But “at that point, chocolate was really just an ingredient,” she said. Learning to actually make chocolate took some education.

She worked for a chocolate maker for a while and the couple spent a lot of time on cacao farms in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Hawaii, even helping with the harvesting and processing.

A lot of work goes into chocolate before the beans even make it to a place like Harvest Chocolate, let alone what happens once the huge sacks of beans arrive at the shop.

Chocolate starts its life on cacao trees grown in tropical regions of the world. The trees put out flowers that, in turn, create seed pods. These pods are harvested and cut open to remove the seeds.

“They’re called cocoa beans but they’re really a seed,” Cross said.

The beans are then covered over and allowed to ferment, the process that brings out the beans’ flavor. Finally, they’re dried and bagged up for shipping.

Gentry and Cross source their beans from several different countries including Ecuador, Uganda, the Dominican Republic, India, and Guatemala.

The supply network they work through ensures the beans they buy are sustainably and ethically grown, with the farmers involved being paid fairly for their work.

The beans arrive at Harvest Chocolate in raw form, so the first step in making chocolate is to roast them, a small-batch process that is different depending on which country the beans come from.

“After the beans themselves, the next biggest impact on flavor is the roasting,” Gentry said.

Once the roasting process is complete, the beans are allowed to cool and then they’re cracked open to remove the nibs inside. The nibs are what become chocolate. But the shells are used to make the shop’s chocolate teas, so nothing ends up being wasted.

The nibs go into a grinder, where they turn into a smooth, thick liquid in a process that takes a couple of days to complete.

Organic cane sugar is the only thing added at this point; later, ingredients such as fruit, nuts, peppermint, or spices like cinnamon or thyme might be added depending on what’s being made.

Some of those added ingredients are sourced from nearby operations.

The apples, for example, come from just down the road at Kapnick Orchards, while the rhubarb used to make the shop’s strawberry-rhubarb swirl chocolate comes from a 97-year-old farm in Traverse City.

After the chocolate is tempered — a process of careful heating and cooling that gives the chocolate its structure, shine, and shelf life — and any flavors are added, the chocolate is molded and allowed to set. Finally, the resulting creations are wrapped and ready for sale.

Not surprisingly, all that chocolate-making leads to a tempting scent wafting through the shop, but the couple has actually become pretty inured to it.

“We really don’t smell it anymore,” Gentry said, laughing. “People will come in and say ‘It smells so good!’ but we don’t smell it.”

Gentry and Cross make dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate in a wide variety of flavors and forms including bars, bagged pieces, and shapes such as hearts for Valentine’s Day. Some of their flavors are year-round, while others are seasonal offerings.

They also make hot chocolate powders, a variety of chocolate teas, and more, along with selling some non-chocolate items made by other Michigan-based artisans and even several flavors of ice cream.

Besides their storefront operation, the couple does a very brisk business across the country through their website, harvestcraftchocolate.com. Some of their products can also be found at select locations across Lenawee County, nearby in Ann Arbor and Brooklyn, and in a number of other Michigan cities. 

The store hosts regular chocolate tastings led by Maya Gangadharan, the shop’s “coordinator of chocolate experiences.”

Participants get the full “bean to bar” experience, learning about where the chocolate comes from, how the beans are harvested and processed, and how Harvest Chocolate makes its products, all while getting to sample a curated lineup of different chocolates.

Harvest Chocolate is at 110 W. Chicago Blvd., Tecumseh. For more information, including current stor hours, call 517-301-4023 or go to harvestcraftchocolate.com.