Featured talk: TCHO – Necessity is the mother of Chocolate Invention

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Alana M. in Permaculture and Chocolate.

TCHO Chocolate is a “New American Chocolate” company located in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Their chocolate is sourced from Peru, Ecuador, Madagascar and Ghana. To learn more about TCHO’s chocolate sourcing click here.

TCHO Chocolate became about due to an obsession with flavor, quality, innovation and sustainability.

As Brad explained, there are major disconnections within chocolate companies. These include geographic, socioeconomic, cultural (language, etc.), technical resources, and the information on what buyers want. Cacao quality hasn’t been focused on until recently.

“TCHO has brought the very same innovation and technology of our factory lab to our farmer partners, enabling them to make small batches of chocolate. (Surprisingly, most growers have never tasted chocolate made from their beans.) We work closely with our coop partners to provide the sensory training that enables them to understand the true driver in the value of their product: flavor.” (Taken from the website)

By having a communal language, this can help tastes become more fluent and similar, pinpointing what the company is directly looking for. This can be hard to teach and find the same language of experience though. A way to go about finding a common language and range for chocolate flavors, a system called “Cropster” was used. This is a current and ongoing database used where the sensory information is recorded among the tasters.

Special thanks to TCHO chocolate for contributing to the study of Terroir!

Some variables that influence chocolate:
-Origins in the Colombian basin in the early 1500’s, chocolate was discovered by the Spanish. This happened before coffee and tea. Yet the biggest home was found in West Africa, where about 70% of cacao was harvested from.
Cacao trees are pollinated by midge flies. There are also very few flowers that make it into pod production. Pods are very diverse and range in shape, size and color. Depending on the ripeness and pod variety, fruit of cacao will taste different.
The beans themselves though have about 600 flavor compounds.

Social/economic side of chocolate:
-Most cacao farmers don’t ever taste the cacao, and rarely the chocolate themselves. By providing education to the farmers, this can enhance quality productivity, and capacity rates.
For example, this can be done by improving infrastructure. When providing and installing fermentation and drying systems, this can keep the beans quality. This will then lead to the farmers making more money, because of the company’s willingness to pay for higher quality beans.

Terroir and quality of chocolate:
Temperature and pH can also influence the flavor of chocolate in fermentation systems.
The color of the beans is often due to the fermentation process.
Fermentation itself is tested by wiring systems to find the desired range for quality.
A sensory analysis is also an important part of the process to do- which checks for flavors of the chocolate by a variety of people. These tastings are often done by food scientists, by farmers as well.

Cacao Trees

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Alana M. in Permaculture and Chocolate.

By Michael Hanson, (Offset), http://www.offset.com/photos/39356

General knowledge:
-30-60ft tall trees, which are about 30ft around. They are plants susceptible to disease, and cannot be grown in full sunlight.

They are only grown in the tropics, 20 degrees above and below the equator. Any temperature below 56 degrees will kill the entire tree.

Harvest:
The cacao pods are heavy and football shaped, slightly bumpy and wrinkly. There are usually two harvests a year, one in October/November, and one in April/March. The pods grow are anywhere from 25-55 pods per tree, with about 500 blossoms. The pods strangely enough only grow on the main trunk, and branches.

40% of the crop is lost each year due to damage and insects. This means there is only about 60% yield, which is a very poor amount.

The pods attached to the placenta, centered in the cacao fruit pods, with a “corn on the cob” like structure.

Taste:
The fruit itself is a very light but very fruity flavor. Stringy and attached to a large pit- which is the cacao bean. The bean is oval shaped about an inch big, and is a rich deep purple color on the inside. Overall much more of a bean to fruit ratio.

Growing Cacao

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Alana M. in Uncategorized.

Farm Production and Influence on Flavor

On average, cacao takes around five years to being producing cacao pods. The trees must be kept in well condition, with provided protection from wind, sun and pruned when needed. After around 26 years, the cacao tree reaches peak production, but will continue to produce fruit at a slower pace. If treated with proper care, Cacao trees can live up to 100 years old.

Cacao can be categorized into three major varieties. This includes Criollo, Trinitario, and Forestero. Suprisingly, over 13,000 species of trees have been identified.

Cacaco production and impact of harvest can affect the quality of chocolate. Other flavors which can influence chocolate flavor is growing compositions (tree maintenance, air, water, etc.) the soil pH, microclimates and the ecosystem.

Sourcing Cacao through Trade Relationships

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Alana M. in Field Study.

By Michael Hanson, (Offset), http://www.offset.com/photos/39379

In Cacao sourcing, as in many commodity supply chains, there are unique models of trade that craft producers can establish with a greater return for all stakeholders. A brieft description of the trade relationships can give only a glimpse into the complexities of souring cacao and importing foreign commodity agriculture.

Direct Trade is a model of working directly with the farmer. This model includes methods where the chocolate maker is buying the beans from local co-operatives and individual farmers. With Direct Trade, Chocolate Makers work with farmers to pay premium prices for quality cacao beans.

Farmers Co-Op is another model of working with farmers. Chocolate makers contract directly with cooperative that buy cacao from farmers and represent their best interest.

Bean to Bar at Origin Chocolate is made at the origin and imported to developed countries for consumption. Bean to Bar production creates jobs in the countries that grow cacao. This model ensures that more revenue from the sale of the finished product remains in the origin country.

source: NW Chocolate festival poster