“It’s chocolate so it has to be good.”
This line has recently come to make me cringe.
Just like coffee or wine, there are significant variances in the flavor of chocolate. The origin, the environment, processing, the manufacturing or chocolatiers’ techniques all affect the quality of the final product. It is why we pay a premium for a French Chardonnay or an Ethiopian blend of coffee. And chocolate is no different.
Chocolate is grown in tropical locations within 20 degrees of the equator: Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Ghana to name a few. Cacao trees in each location have unique genetic profiles and are exposed to different environments that can make the beans have a wide range of flavors from fruity to even smoky. These distinctions add character and flavor to cacao, not to mention a premium for the farmers who grow them.
Unfortunately, these high quality, flavorful beans make up a very small percentage of the overall chocolate market. Not to name any companies specifically, but your favorite Halloween treats, chocolate bunnies, chocolate kisses, actually contain very little chocolate material at all. These large scale production companies often source their beans from a variety of cacao known as CCN-51. This disease resistant tree can grow in very little shade (a necessity for flavor cacao trees) and produces 4 times more beans than a flavor tree. The downsides? The trees are hard on the soil and the flavor is awful. Companies add more sugar and more oils to mask the bitter flavor; there’s little they can do about the soil. Lower quality beans, less chocolate material, but more output: production and profit at the expense of flavor.
Chocolate is not just chocolate. There is bulk chocolate and there is fine chocolate. Just like you can tell the different between boxed and quality wine. If you have never bought an artisinal bar or tasted a hand crafted truffle, I would highly recommend it. Just as I did, you will quickly come to appreciate and crave the unbelievable flavor.
– Sophia
