The Science of Chocolate

Comment

Comment by Mark Guiltinan on June 20, 2011 at 4:20pm

Romi, check out the world cocoa foundation website....  they have a very good library of cacao science.....

 

http://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/scientific-research/research-li...

 

Mark Guiltinan

Comment by Romi Burks on June 20, 2011 at 2:11pm

Hi all.  Looking forward to getting threads.  I am a professor of biology at a small liberal arts college and teach an interdisciplinary course on chocolate.  Always looking for new information on the science.

 

Does anyone maintain a database or collection of primary literature (i.e. published academic) papers on chocolate?

Comment by Sharron Harper on April 20, 2011 at 6:21pm

Whoohoooo!  The science of chocolate.  What could be better!  I am not a scientist but my chocolate making partner is.  I can't wait to show her this site.  If she says anything smart, I will let you know.  I am planning to go to the indigenous areas of Costa Rica soon to see the trees that produce our cacao.  I am assuming they will be the criollo variety.  But, I am wondering if there are other varieties there also.  I will post a report, and hopefully some photos, upon my return.

Comment by Kristina on December 28, 2010 at 5:50am

I just post the link to the news about cacao genome

Data of theobroma cacao genome

hoping more competent members will comment on this.

Comment by Harry Way on November 14, 2010 at 10:09am

Specific Capacity for heat of Chocolate

Anthony - what are you looking for? Value or explanation? I have a value of 1.46 kJ/kg/°K for milk chocolate, this value was determined by one the large confectionary companies here in USA. and would be for a Chocolate with about 31% fat, 50% sugar, 10% milk powder.
I also have a table for various fats if you need it, which gives the specific capacity of heat for cocoa butter at 2.12 kJ/kg/°K at 60°C

Comment by Frank Homann on November 13, 2010 at 1:56pm

Jim,

Very sorry if I offended your emotions around Brazilian cocoa. I am sure that the beans from your farm are indeed excellent. I know a couple of excellent chocolates that have been made with specific Brazilian beans. I (yes, humbly, sort of) apologize. My comment wasn´t directed at your beans, but was meant as a rather general comment on the market for bulk beans.

You surely didn´t mean that all 180,000 tons of Brazilian cocoa are excellent? As far as I know at least 99% of Brazilian cocoa is sold as bulk cocoa. Bulk is bulk because there is no noticeable differenciation. This may be fair or not, but as one mass-market chocolate company man once commented to me "cocoa butter" is "cocoa butter". Doesn´t matter where the beans come from, Ivory coast or Brazil. We can sing our national hymns as much as we want, but it doesn´t make our cocoa beans taste better. Consumers and hence cocoa buyers vote with their money.

"National pride" emotions are actually, I believe, damaging to all cocoa bean suppliers, because the ultimate claim is that all beans are excellent. All cats are grey. Which of course means that no beans are excellent an no-one receives a premium for a better flavour product.

We are actually not adversaries, but on the same page. We want to make a better product that we can sell to buyers at a better price.

Your forastero beans may be good. Nacional is for example a sub-set of a forastero, and many Nacional beans are very interesting indeed. CCN-51 is not a very good bean, flavour wise, if you ask me (sorry CCN-51 farmers out there, but this is just what chocolate and bean buyers vote for with their money). But we know very little about the varieties. I think it is useful to be a bit broad and generalizing at times, simply because a more complex message is impossible to get across to consumers. And one great challenge bean suppliers has is to educate consumers.

Genes or terroir? Both probably. We just happen to believe that genes are much more important than terroir. Bad genes + good terrorir doesn´t make fine cocoa. Can forasteros be good? Yes, of course. Some can be differentiated from others. Ghana beans can be very chocolatey and can form a good base for a blend for a good bar, for example. But they are just not as complex and interesting as many Trinitarios. You can agree or not, but in the end consumers and chocolate makers vote with their money. Trinidad beans sell for $5 to $6 a kg. (open sources). Ghana beans?

You called us a "3rd party promoter", but what does that mean? We have more than 1m Trinitario/Criollo trees under management contracts with outgrowers. We invested in identifying the best genetic material and then undertook the largest grafting operation in the history of cocoa. We transplant the plants and provide all technical assistance and commercialization to our farmers. Does that make us "another 3rd party promoter"? I actually don´t know of anyone who has tried this before. If our outgrowers were to represent themselves, first of all they would not have fine cocoa but bulk (98% of all cocoa in Central America today is bulk and none is sold as fine), and even if they had fine cocoa, they would not be able to excersise much power -- no marketing or even ability to reach out to the gourmet markets. A dispersed supplier base, with lots of emotional flag-brandishing in-fighting, just results in low power to growers. More power to the buyers = lower prices for cocoa beans and no industry development. It may be a (twisted?) romantic notion to have hundreds of thousands of individual cocoa farmers going to market by themselves, but neither realistic nor good, I (humbly) believe.

Xoco´s trees are not identical genetically, btw, but come from 2,000 or so different "mother-trees", all Trinitarios/Criollos, distributed among five different fenotypes. So much more diverse than, say, CCN-51. I have never heard anyone thinking that CCN-51 is a menace? Where do they have mono-clones in cocoa anyway? In vitro reproduction hasn´t been applied in any practical way, so mono-clones, I suspect, only exist in clonal gardens. Cocoa trees morph all the time. Also, all trees are hit to some degree by monilia, if there is a lot of humidity in the farms. I don´t know much about whitches broom but I assume that not only one variety of trees are hit? All trees have problems with ants or root fungus. Or squirrels. So is your argument based on actual facts, or, has it just been an emotional morning in Brazil? :)

Jim, if you want to improve the flavour of cocoa, you can´t ignore genes. Just like in, say, apples, there are different varieties of cocoa, in fact many many varieties. Why the opposition to trying to figure out which ones are more interesting flavour-wise than others? Why cling to the status quo? Or do we in fact agree, emotions aside? I like Brazil, think it is a great country with many excellent people. It probably has some good cocoa too. Just not a lot, today. :)

Comment by Mann Made Chocolate on November 13, 2010 at 11:42am

@Jim - very interesting commentary! Thanks! I'm enjoying learning about this by reading the differing points of view.

Comment by Jim on November 13, 2010 at 11:27am

Frank,
I read your comments regarding cacau quality....

I'm surprised that you took the "artistic license" to condemn Brazilian cacau. You are invited to take a look at the recent results of CIRAD, ICCO, Mars,Cargill and others that sponsored the Cocoa of Excellence at the Salon du Chocolate in Paris. The winner of the South American entries was Joao Tavares, with forestero beans. You can take a look at his award at http://www.cocoaofexcellence.org/index.php?option=com_content&v...

Our farm which also produces forestero beans was also awarded certificates for Cacau of Excellence.

To paraphrase your comments " But just claiming something without any facts to support it, is of course rather absurd and only contributes to the general confusion" holds true for your long winded explanations as to why your cacau is superior to others. I don't know how long you have been in this business but it would serve you well to enroll in a couple of humility classes. The cacau industry is filled with farms and farmers that are devoted to quality cacau and deserve to be respected.

I did not gather that you are a cocoa farmer and your xoco video lead me to believe that you are another 3rd party promoter intent on using the true farmer as a means to an end.

By the way....good luck on using "monoclonal" practices when a disease hits that is partial to the single genetic traits. It's been tried before and ended in disaster. Genetic diversity is required to maintain long term cacau production in any region.

Good luck with your adventure!

Comment by Mann Made Chocolate on November 13, 2010 at 11:16am

@Frank Homann writes "Hope this was helpful." Yes! It was! Great commentary. Thank you!

Comment by Anthony Lange on November 13, 2010 at 8:08am

Can anyone comment on the Specific Heat Capacity of Chocolate?

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