Years earlier we’d turned to science to satisfy our curiosity about wild plants. So, once again we turned to science for a solution, we wanted to represent vanity by creating the biggest bubbles that we could possibly control.

Japanese chef Seiji Yamamoto came to the rescue, suggesting we use an aquarium pump to inflate our chocolate bubbles. We took our idea to AZTI-Tecnalia, a research centre we’ve worked with for years, where one of their specialists in rheology assisted us. Rheology is the branch of chemistry that studies the deformation and flow of matter. Finally, in 2006 bubbles came to Mugaritz to stay. Since then, we’ve made bubbles out of honey, beetroot, and other ingredients.

In 2008, we published an article in a scientific journal, explaining the details of our research. In 2015 we attached a fibre, the inulin, to the bubbles to give them greater stability. That year we carry out a taste where the bubbles were weak but they could hold another product without breaking, we called it “Mousse of cream and stone crab”. Later, we went one step further by freeze-drying them, making them practically eternal. At Mugaritz our team refers to them as “dried hydrangeas”.