Bioversity celebrates cocoa diversity

The award brought together the Cocoa of Excellence project led by Bioversity International (with its private and public sector partners) with Event International (the organizer of the Salon du Chocolat) and the International Cocoa Organization, united in their desire to link cocoa growers with chocolate makers.

“The point is to raise awareness along the supply chain of the importance of craftsmanship at the farm level as well as the diversity and complexity of cocoa flavours,” said Stephan Weise, Director of Bioversity’s Commodities for Livelihoods programme, which manages the Cocoa of Excellence project.

Among cocoa varieties, the most sought-after are the Criollo types. Their high susceptibility to diseases, however, means that they have largely been replaced by more robust Forastero types, which now account for almost all world production and which have come to define the taste of chocolate as most people know it. Trinitario types, hybrids between Criollo and Forastero varieties, have a more distinctive and complex taste that evokes the flavour heritage of both parents.

To date researchers have identified roughly 300 different flavours in cocoa. Despite the “genetic” differences of flavours among variety types, flavours are not determined solely by genes. Genetically similar trees can produce beans with different characteristics depending on where they are grown. Treatment of the beans after harvest also affects flavour. These interactions make it difficult to define categories that compare like with like. For example, can a Criollo that has a distinctive taste because it was grown on a Pacific island be in the same category as Criollos from South America?

“One cannot really talk about “terroir” for cocoa as one can for wines”, says Bioversity scientist Michael Hermann, who served on the Award jury. “In the end, we opted for flavour categories to provide meaningful ratings.” The selected categories were cocoa aroma, sweetness and five flavour descriptors (fruity, floral, nutty, spicy and woody). After meticulously tasting and scoring the samples, the following day the jury announced the origin of the top 10 samples in each category.

The results confirmed the reputation of Venezuela, Ecuador and Trinidad as producers of fine cocoa. They had the highest number of entries in the top 10 of each category: Trinidad came first in the fruity and sweetness categories but the other categories were dominated by newcomers: Bolivia in the spicy, woody and floral categories and Mexico and Peru in the nutty and cocoa aroma categories.

“There are no winners and losers, though,” said jury member Ed Seguine, a chocolate research fellow at Mars and founding member of the Cocoa of Excellence project. “Every country can produce fine chocolate. It’s not a competition. Besides diversity, what an event like this celebrates is excellence in growing, harvesting, fermenting and drying cocoa beans.”

Seguine is adamant that chocolate makers need to work more closely with farmers to improve the overall quality of the bean supply, and more importantly the lives of cocoa growers.

Note to Editors:

In total 152 bean samples were received (85 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 44 from Asia and the Pacific and 23 from Africa). Latin America sent in the greatest number of samples, even though it only accounts for a small proportion of world production; as the homeland of the cacao tree, the local diversity ensures that its cocoa possesses the greatest diversity of flavours.

For this year’s blind tasting, only the samples from Latin America and the Caribbean were evaluated by experts from CIRAD and the Italian chocolate maker ICAM. They selected 40 that were prepared into chocolate by the manufacturer Barry Callebaut for presentation to the jury of the International Cocoa Awards. The same method was used for all samples to ensure that differences in the flavours and aromas could not be the result of different processing.

Giving feedback to farmers is an important aspect of the Cocoa of Excellence project, which supplied the entries to the International Cocoa Awards in a bid to help cocoa growers tap the growing market for high quality cocoa origins. CIRAD, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, which processed the dried beans, will send farmers the flavour profile of their sample.

For further information, contact Stephan Weise.