There is this saying in the chocolate industry. When you look into the origin of the cocoa beans, you can be regarded as a real chocolate old driver.
For example, 70% chocolate of different brands, you will find that the taste is also different. Of course, the taste and texture of the final dessert will also be different. In order to better understand how to choose the chocolate you want, this is the purpose of our article today.
Like wine and coffee. As a crop, different precipitation, sunlight, temperature, soil, humanities, etc. are all influencing the flavor of cocoa beans. This influencing factor is called Terroir (terroir).
It is these details that are easily overlooked by consumers that together create the taste in our mouths.
01
What are the main varieties of cocoa?
Criolo
Criollo
It is an excellent product in cocoa. This cocoa bean has a floral, fruity, and nutty fragrance. But the fruit is small and diseased, so the yield is very limited.
Frastro
Forastero
Compared with the former, Forastero’s vitality is much stronger, and its output is much higher than other varieties, accounting for more than 80% of the world’s cocoa output. It has high tannin content and strong bitterness. So it is often not used alone to make chocolate.
Trinidad
Trinitario
It is a cross between Criollo and Forastero Frostello. It has both high-quality flavor and high yield. It usually has flavors such as spices, soil, and fruits.
Peru
Nacional
It is a variant of Frostro, a species unique to Peru. Only produced in Ecuador, it has a unique spicy and floral and fruity aroma.
02
Where is the main cocoa production area?
We see that cacao trees are mainly distributed in the 20° north-south latitude of the equator. This is because cacao trees like to grow in an environment with high temperature and high humidity. There are so many producing areas of cocoa beans, so we will not repeat them here. At the end of this issue, we will introduce them along with the chocolate brands.
03
What are single-origin and mixed-origin chocolates?
Mixed origin chocolate
With the rise of early industry, the source of cocoa beans was in the hands of soy merchants. Large chocolate companies will collect beans of varying quality from all over the world, add a lot of sugar, flavors, and emulsifiers to make the most common industrial chocolate on the market.
Later, some people think that “mixing” is an art just like Western oenology.
In order to pursue more complex and unique chocolates, creators and high-quality brands have begun to select different pure cocoa, mix them in specific proportions, and process them into chocolates that are different from industrial chocolates and taste better.
Single origin chocolate Single origin chocolate
Single can be a single area, a single plantation, or even a single estate. Unlike industrial chocolate, single-source chocolate wants to maximize the retention and highlight the unique flavors of different producing areas.
And what are the Bean to bar and Tree to bar chocolates often mentioned by those chocolate veterans?
04
What is bean to bar chocolate?
Bean to bar, from bean pods to chocolate bars, also called raw bean refined chocolate, is a concept born in 2000. They found that chocolate, like coffee and wine, has its own unique flavor, and the formation of these flavors lies in the cocoa pod itself.
So these producers started to select from cocoa beans, and after buying dried cocoa beans, they used their own methods to make processed chocolate. This also makes raw bean refined chocolate more expensive than industrial chocolate.
By 2015, some larger chocolate companies paid attention to this chocolate, which is loved by chocolate fans, and began to use this concept to produce chocolate.
05
What is Tree to bar chocolate?
The upgraded version of Bean to bar is Tree to bar. Tree to bar, as the name implies, from cocoa tree to chocolate bar, also called plantation chocolate. The cocoa beans used are the same variety and the same batch of cocoa from the same plantation.
Without the intermediary link, from planting, picking, fermentation, baking, grinding, fine grinding, adding auxiliary materials (or no), temperature adjustment, shaping, packaging, a whole set of chocolate production process is completed in the cocoa-growing country or even the cocoa-growing location.
This means that it is purer and more original and restores the unique flavor of high-quality cocoa. The terroir of an area changes every year, so every piece of Tree to bar chocolate may be out of print.
The terroir-fermentation-baking process determines the quality and flavor of the final chocolate. It is different from other chocolates that are baked in the country of origin near the equator and then processed in chocolate factories in various countries.
The creators of Tree to bar are in close contact with the growers and use the growers’ expertise to perfect the unique fermentation process of each type of cocoa. Some brands will also set up chocolate factories directly on the ground to train local growers and improve the planting environment. Fundamentally grasp the final flavor of chocolate.
Similar to coffee, we can collectively refer to Bean/Tree to bar chocolate as fine chocolate. There is no doubt that industrial emulsifiers and fat additives other than cocoa butter are almost invisible in the ingredients list of real boutique chocolate.
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Post time: Oct-25-2021
