How farmers produce the cacao beans they send to manufacturers – the entire life cycle of a cacao bean from seedling tree to drying racks in the tropics; Special focus on the fermentation stage of cacao bean production and the formation of flavor precursors.

Why is chocolate hard to describe? Hell, why is ANY food hard to describe to someone who has never tried it? The answer is more complicated than you think. This post will unwind some of the mystery surrounding how we taste foods and how that taste intersects with aroma and texture to create FLAVOR.

Only 25% of what you perceive as taste comes from your taste buds. Now you probably want to know “How does aroma get from this hot chocolate I’m drinking to my brain in such a way that I can “taste” a smell? How many “smells” are there? And where do they come from?” That’s what this post tries to answer.

How we perceive the flavor of chocolate – the flavor of everything we eat, really – is a LOT more complex and fascinating a process than “my tongue told me it was yummy so I ate it.” Before we can start playing mad-scientists and creating our very own specialty chocolates, highlighting the flavors we like, diminishing those characteristics we don’t, we MUST grasp – at least on a basic level – how flavors are designed.