Setting the context, Indian craft chocolates are growing on account of the visible decline in sales of traditional Indian sweets (mithai). Large FMCG chocolate brands have been wooing customers to move away from traditional Indian sweets for years with some absolutely brilliant and award winning communications centered around emotions. The collective efforts around communication about the alternate “meetha” have started to become visible and show fruits in terms of shift in preferences and sales. The shift from sale of “open” Indian sweets in traditional mom and pop shops to pre-packaged branded sweets has lead to small sweet shops facing closures across the country. The beneficiaries of this slow down in sales of Indian sweets have certainly been chocolate manufacturers and startup Indian Bean to Bar chocolate makers where sales growth has been very healthy and in the upwards of 10% annually in case of FMCG players and upwards of 25% annually in case of Bean to Bar chocolate makers. To add to the equation, dark chocolates, which use more cocoa in their recipes have started to become popular and relevant to a larger set of consumers. Mintel research indicates that 38 per cent Indians associate dark chocolate as a premium product while 39 per cent consider it ideal for gifting. The indian craft chocolate brands primarily aim to take away consumers of “imported chocolates”. This has further made the main ingredient (cacao) more relevant to the industry.
Given the market scenario, Indian cacao and its contribution to bean to bar chocolates worldwide is at a very interesting juncture and has been a topic of interest for many and has received its share of criticism in the past. This criticism is for obvious and understandable reasons. The biggest reasons could have been attributed to the lack of exposure of the capabilities of Indian cacao to Indian Journalists and Media in the past. Indian bean to bar chocolates deliver several benefits ranging from contribution to farmer welfare, the economic benefits to the growing country and eventually to consumers good health as well. Read about them here. However, one should point out that the face of Indian cacao and torch bearers for the past several years have been 2 organised efforts which have helped hundreds of bean to bar chocolate makers create award winning chocolates. Certainly worth mentioning are the efforts by Regal Plantations and GoGround Beans & Spices in improving cacao post harvesting protocols and firmly placing India on the global cacao map since 2016. Regal Plantations has literally owned the “Annamalai” origin for many years now and Go Ground has been synonymous to the “Idukki” origin across the world. Their untiring efforts since 2016 has made Indian cacao more popular globally than in India itself and with the Indian bean to bar industry now on the verge of explosion and expansion, their efforts will be commended more than ever before.
We, at Cocoashala, have been consultants in the implementation of 4 of the largest and most active fermentation units in India which have an installed capacity of over 100 tonnes of fine flavour cocoa annually! We have this year (2024) commenced the most technologically advanced cacao post-harvest project in India using our 10+ years of experience in the subject and with a scientific approach towards problem solving. This I thought would be the right time to pen down this thought piece.
Cacao and chocolate have several hundred flavor compounds which make it more complex than grape and wine. Just like how it is believed that doctors know very less about the human body, it is true about cacao as well! It would be fair to say that we are in a phase of initial discovery and research globally. Being involved in cacao research and cacao post harvest protocol implementation over last 5 years in India, I consider myself really privledged. We have just scratched the surface and there is a lot more to learn for everyone involved. To say, Indian cacao beans have already arrived would be a grossly wrong statement to make. It hasn’t stood the test of time and we haven’t produced enough award winning cacao consistently to claim any accolades yet. We won a gold and a few silvers and bronze at the Asia Pacific awards recently but we would like to keep our bar higher. We must note that chocolate is a combination of Cacao, Sugar, cocoa butter & milk and the flavours added to it have impressed the judges and that is being awarded. It is not the cacao from India. When flavours are added, cacao on many occasions become incidental. India has not won awards for their high dark % chocolates yet. I do not wish or intend to take anything away from the awarded chocolate maker but we need to understand what is being awarded. A bean to bar chocolate maker’s intent to pay a tribute to the Indian cacao should be to select the right cacao beans and then either retain or enhance the good flavors that exist in the bean and express them in a non-flavoured dark chocolate. How can this be achieved? Sounds interesting? Read on for more.
To start with some background, India is a very interesting country from a cacao demand & supply perspective. It is among the very few countries that grows cacao and has a large chocolate consuming population as well. This is very uplifting/encouraging. India is perhaps also the only country where you could consume craft (read expensive) chocolates made from the same origin/region (let us take Idukki, Kerala as a good example) and notice dramatically conflicting and different flavor profiles and experience. On one hand, you could enjoy delicate and interesting raisin notes with a clean finish in chocolates crafted by one chocolate maker and with another chocolate makers creation more commonly you would find defective putrid, hammy, cheesy and undesirable notes! This inconsistency of flavour delivery between chocolate makers (mainly due to differences in suppliers) also changes the fundamental opinions of the nascent Indian consumer who wishes to support Indian cacao and chocolate, but, this variation/differential ends up doing a disservice to the origin.
Industrially produced commercial chocolates are made using cacao powder or an intermediate product (cocoa mass) as the base ingredient. In the case of high quality bean to bar chocolates, cacao beans are used as the base raw material. Using powder or mass as a startpoint helps to keep costs low since the ingredients are treated to ensure consistency. Needless to say, the acceptability of the “treatment” is always going to be debated. This is where the plot changes for bean to bar chocolate makers. They have a choice between beans that have been handled (harvested, fermented & dried) well at the farm by professionals Vs beans that have been handled with an intention to be sold to mass market buyers who most often do not intend to make the final chocolate product with them.
As a start, we shall differentiate between fine flavor specialty and bulk cacao. Fermented and dried cocoa beans that possess the potential to unlock interesting flavors after roasting, besides the typical cocoa flavor, are often identified as “fine or flavor” cocoa beans. The highlight of and difference between fine/flavor cocoa and bulk cocoa is in the flavor that the beans can lend to the chocolate. Bulk cacao usually do not boast of any delicate flavors and there is no consistency in their post harvesting practices. Often, beans with flavor defects also pass as bulk cacao.
Globally, only a few origins of cocoa beans are considered as fine flavored cocoa types. This is due to the limited availability of genetic and/or geographic origins of cocoa beans that contain intrinsic fine flavor attributes. While cacao gets identified by the genetics, the post-harvest processes employed enhance the flavor development. Fine flavors in cacao include fruit (fresh, citrus etc), floral, herbal, and wood notes, nut, caramel and cacao notes (Yes! cacao is also a note!).
It is established that fermentation and the process/protocols adopted influences the formation of flavor compounds in cacao. The science and understanding of cacao post harvesting (fermentation and drying) is at its nascency in India and most evolved bean to bar makers even globally are trying to learn as they go along. Improving post-harvest processes, helps farmers get a better value for their produce. India grows only the bulk cacao varieties and Indian cacao farmers have not invested in improving their post-harvest practices. This has traditionally been due to the lack of demand for better processed beans.
Scientifically, the key to producing fine flavor chocolate from fine flavor cacao is consistent availability of the same flavor compounds in cacao. Hence, the focus, as far as cacao is concerned, is on repeatability and consistency in the cacao post-harvest and chocolate production process. In the current nascent phase, Indian craft chocolate makers work with several variables in cacao that are not even understood, monitored, measured or controlled.
As we understand the origin of flavors better, we can note that the flavor of cocoa beans that grow within 20° of latitude on either side of the equator can be significantly different, thus can express the flavor of its country of origin and the practices adopted specific to that geographical area.
In many cacao growing countries where the required genetic varieties are not available, there is now a shift towards enhancing flavor profile by employing accurate post-harvest practices and additional resources to try and get the best out of the bulk variety of cacao. Much like coffee, specialty/craft chocolate producers are now demanding better cacao with variations in notes to make better and more expressive chocolate.
At the very high level, cacao and hence chocolate flavor can vary between and within origins and is influenced by the soil condition, season, microbial population, ripeness of the specific variety of the fruit, pulp reduction, temperatures, humidity, drying protocols, roasting and of course the chocolate recipe and manufacturing process. AND we are not even talking genetics, the amount of sugars available, amount of mass, number of turns, type of wood used in fermentation boxes and last but not the least, the boxes shape & size yet! This makes the post harvesting of cacao very interesting and immersive as a process. The variabilities are huge. Any change in any of the above listed variables impact flavour and this must be carefully observed and controlled if possible.
It might also be pointless talking about cacao varieties in India, because cacao farmers have restricted sources of supply of planting material. Clearly, we are too early in the evolution to be able to understand the impact of terroir on cacao being offered from various states in India. Most cacao farmers in India have small land holdings and do not have the minimum quantity of beans required to process cacao consistently. This means, what you get today would be different in the immediate next batch because the variables differ. To add to that, a typical Indian cacao farm has 3-4 varietals growing in harmony. The way nature has it, farmers cannot ensure that all the varietals are harvested at the same time and processed together because they have a small window during the season. Each variety has a different ripening period, variable sugar levels and flavor capability and hence should ideally be fermented in isolation.
With no defined SOP’s for cacao farmers to follow to produce fine flavour beans and no qualified agency to support this body of knowledge, a google search (or research) seldom provides an understanding of the actual process that should be adopted for maximizing flavor potential and delivering them consistently. To add to the problem, many farmers do not understand the final product (which is chocolate!) How does one expect farmers to improve the acceptability of cacao when they do not understand the application of it? This is extremely difficult and hard to do! Further, most fermentation results in small and inconsistent batches of cacao and does not guarantee any repeatability and consistency of flavours and hence hampers the ability of the farmer to charge higher prices. This is because the variables that impact flavors are either not known or monitored. This in turn impacts the ability of bean to bar chocolate makers to create consistently good products. Almost every cacao batch that is fermented would have differential variables to deal with and would have the potential to help chocolate producers exhibit different flavour notes in each chocolate bar! In a typical milk chocolate, the role of cacao and the manifestations of its defects are limited. The real test of a batch of cacao is when the chocolate maker decides to make a 70+% dark chocolate bar.
Given the current state of Indian cacao and the stage of its evolution, to say that dark chocolate made using cacao from India or even Tamilnadu or Kerala has specific flavor profiles, or label them for flavors on packaging, would be blatantly, scientifically and embarrassingly wrong.
– L Nitin Chordia, India’s 1st Certified Chocolate taster
The most we can perhaps claim at this stage of our understanding and evolution is that a specific batch of chocolates offers a set of specific notes and they may not even exist in the batch of chocolates produced from the next lot of cacao! This inconsistency also makes bean to bar chocolate interesting for both the maker and the consumer.
There are a handful of Indian bean to bar chocolate makers who are trying really hard to deliver their best experiences and it is certain that we will see high growth in the Indian bean to bar chocolate business over the next 5 years. I expect to have over 300 makers by 2025 in India. Hence my suggestion at this stage would be to hold on for a bit before passing a judgement on Indian cacao to let us settle down a bit as a origin and put in place practises that can help us look beyond the Indian shores and knock on the global opportunity map with more consistency. While there may be a long way to go for Indian cacao, chocolate makers would evolve with consistent and more interesting offerings. We can only expect things to look better going forward. We monitor the progress of Indian cacao and chocolates very closely, and would reiterate that:
“When you have good grapes in hand, you decide to make grape juice with it or fine wine!”.
– L Nitin Chordia, India’s 1st certified chocolate taster
Sorry to disappoint, but it is time to break the suspense! The myth that the surrounding plants have an impact on the flavour of cacao is unscientific! The myth that the soil, topography, and climate (terroir) have an impact on the flavor of cacao is unscientific and not proven too! It makes for no story! As they say, the future is bright. In our case, with increased availability of fine flavour cacao beans, the future is about dark chocolates in India.
About L Nitin Chordia and Cocoashala
L Nitin Chordia is India’s 1st Certified Chocolate Taster and 1st Indian Judge at the International Chocolate Awards, London and co-founder of Kocoatrait sustainable chocolates. Nitin is a cacao post-harvest professional working with an aim to transform India cacao and doubling farmer income. Nitin is the 1st Non-founder teacher at the Institute and delivers his lectures in London. Cocoashala is an initiative to promote knowledge, education, production and consumption of fine chocolates in India. Cocoashala also aim to invest in research, development and enhancement of fine chocolate techniques, processes and recipes’.