Seduced By The Dark Side - techniques and trends in the chocolate industry

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Feb, 2001 by Jane Bennett Clark

FOOD | In the battle of the bars, BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE is all the rage--but the price is rich.

VALENTINE'S DAY is almost here, and the timing is perfect for something small, shiny, perfectly shaped, exquisitely packaged and pricey enough to impress your significant other. How about a chocolate bar?

That's the choice these days for people willing to pay up to $3 an ounce (versus about 25 cents an ounce for your standard 1.55-ounce Hershey's bar) to satisfy a gold-plated sweet tooth. Along with premium versions of coffee, vinegar and olive oil, "right now we're finally seeing this enormous trend for premium chocolate," says Nagui Morcos of Lindt & Sprungli, the multinational maker of high-end Swiss-style chocolate. "It's growing like crazy." One industry watcher estimates that sales of premium chocolate in the U.S. have risen almost 20% in the past few years.

Part of the urge to indulge can be ascribed to dark chocolate, which appeals to more mature palates. Sales of dark chocolate represent a bite-size portion of the $13-billion annual chocolate market, but they're a big chunk of the industry's upscale business. Dark-chocolate consumption "has never been higher," according to Joan Steuer of Chocolate Marketing, an industry newsletter. "Many people are becoming sophisticated about what they're tasting, and they're spending more money for it."

If you need a pretext, good health may be one. Recent studies suggest that components in dark chocolate, when eaten in moderation, may help prevent cancer and heart disease, and may also boost serotonin, the brain chemical that controls mood. Sugar Busters!, a popular diet, even recommends chocolate with a high cocoa content for one of its high-flavor desserts.

Meanwhile, increased Internet and mail-order commerce and delivery services such as FedEx are taking fresh, fancy chocolate bars out of high-rent urban districts and into the hinterlands. Says Fran Bigelow of Fran's Chocolates, a boutique chocolate maker in Seattle: "You can think of thanking somebody on Monday, and on Thursday or Friday the chocolate will be on their doorstep."

The sweet science

NO WRIT IS more sacred--or secret--than a chocolate maker's recipe. Still, all manufacturers start with the same process, using cacao beans from equatorial countries, including Brazil, Ghana, Venezuela and the Ivory Coast. Harvested beans are fermented, dried, roasted and cracked; the nibs, or meat, of the beans are ground into a paste, called chocolate liquor, and molded into unsweetened chocolate or pressed into a cake and pulverized for cocoa. For sweetened chocolate, sugar, flavoring, lecithin (an emulsifier needed to keep the paste, sugar and other ingredients from separating) and additional cocoa butter go into the liquor, as well as milk solids for milk chocolate. The mix is thoroughly stirred and then repeatedly heated and cooled, or tempered, to produce the glossy texture of finished chocolate.

But God is in the details when it comes to chocolate making, says Bernard Callebaut, whose company produces high-end Belgian confections under the Callebaut name. "You can take the same batch of beans and give them to five manufacturers, and you're going to end up with five different results." Some makers, like the American company Scharffen Berger, roast varieties of beans in small batches to enhance the flavor of each variety. European companies generally roast the beans longer than U.S. companies do to get a richer, stronger product.

As for bean types, a few aficionados prefer West Indies cacao beans for their whiff of spice. But the criollo, grown mostly in Venezuela, is generally considered the queen bean because of its fruity flavor. Despite a few single-bean bars, such as Michel Cluizel's all-criollo Premier Cru d'Hacienda "Concepcion" ($5 for a 3.5ounce bar from www.chocosphere.com), most manufacturers use a blend, says John Scharffenberger, who, with Robert Steinberg, co-founded Scharffen Berger. Their company, the only small-batch manufacturer in the U.S., uses up to 11 bean varieties in a single bar, far more than the two or three used by larger companies.

Regional tastes also guide the recipe. Europeans favor hazelnut as a flavoring, and Americans, vanilla. The Swiss boost cocoa-butter content to produce the characteristically creamier Swiss chocolate. Purity, on the other hand, knows no borders. The best chocolatiers use fresh, natural ingredients and steer clear of fats such as palm and coconut oils, which can leave a greasy aftertaste.

Heart of darkness

FOR ALL THOSE variables, it's the cocoa content, or essence of the crushed cacao bean, that defines dark chocolate. "That's what gives chocolate its wonderful, robust flavor," says Morcos of Lindt-Sprungli. Chocolate sold in the U.S. falls under Food and Drug Administration rules that require at least 10% cocoa content for milk chocolate and 35% cocoa content for semisweet and the darker, bittersweet products.

High-end chocolate generally goes far beyond those minimums. Valrhona makes a bittersweet bar called Le Noir Amer that contains 71% cocoa, and both Scharffen Berger and Lindt produce bars containing 70%. Michel Cluizel goes as high as 85% for an eating bar; another 85% bar, by Scharffen Berger, is in the works. Even milk chocolate, which exchanges milk solids for some of the cacao, is beginning to be seduced by the dark side. Valrhona's Le Lacte bar contains 40% cocoa--about four times the cocoa content of a Hershey's bar.