This fall, Torres will start a partnership with Belgian chocolate manufacturer Belcolade, based in Brussels. Torres will control the raw materials needed to design giant chocolate-coated frogs or lips as sensual as Marilyn Monroe's.
He will also determine harvest time, ripeness, fermentation and other attributes for the prime cocoa beans grown on a farm in Mexico, where he's reserved one section for himself. To get the annual 100 tons he needs, Torres hedges his cocoa needs with a broker, and he also hunts for rare beans grown in far-flung places like Venezuela, Trinidad and Madagascar.
"These countries produce very high quality cocoa beans, but the quantity is very small," he says. "Everybody is fighting to get their hands on them."