Unsweetened Chocolate

From Season 4: Showstopper Desserts

Unsweetened chocolate is a building-block ingredient in countless desserts, most notably brownies and chocolate cake. Not for nibbling, it is pure, unadulterated chocolate, or solidified chocolate liquor, produced without added sugar or flavorings. Seven brands were rated: four American supermarket standbys; a premium American brand; and two brands used largely by candy makers and pastry chefs. We conducted a blind tasting with 20 Cook's staffers and four pastry chefs sampling a classic American brownie and a chocolate sauce.

Our assumption going into this tasting (based on prior taste tests) was that, in general, the more expensive brands would prevail. In fact, this was the outcome. However, we found a surprising range of taste differences from one brand to the next. If unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate, how could one brand be so different from another?

The Beans Matter

The first thing we learned was that most chocolate companies don't like to talk about their product in detail. With one exception, the companies we contacted were distinctly vague. Outside experts agree, however, that normally companies use a lower-priced bulk bean—from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, or the Ivory Coast—for their unsweetened chocolate. The irony of this practice is that there is more chocolate in unsweetened than in any other type, so the quality of the beans may matter more, not less.

Every expert we contacted told us that the flavor of unsweetened chocolate is largely determined before it gets to the chocolate processor. Country of origin and specific bean blend are the most critical factors, not processing, Therefore, when it comes to making chocolate, you have to start with good ingredients. If this is the case, however, then why don't all companies purchase the highest quality beans?

Cacao beans mainly come from West Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, and Malaysia, with smaller amounts coming from other South American countries and the Caribbean. Each region has diverse outputs and characteristics. If a flavor profile includes, say, the taste of coffee, a company would select West African beans; for floral notes, Ecuadorian arriba; for fruity flavor, beans from Venezuela and Trinidad; and for citrus flavor, beans from Madagascar.

Some companies, however, can't afford the luxury of buying the best-flavored beans, and it's not necessarily because of the price. Large companies may use 10,000 tons of beans per year, so what is most important to them is supply. They need to buy chocolate from a region that consistently produces a large amount, such as West Africa. For example, they cannot risk a short supply from Venezuela, which produces a tiny amount of some of the best beans.

We concluded that the really big players in the unsweetened chocolate business use a more limited mix of beans because their volume demands exclude smaller suppliers, and this in turn may make the flavor profile of their product less interesting.

Blending, Roasting, Conching

If the quality of a bean is one important determinant of flavor, the blend of beans selected is another. Of most interest is whether a company roasts bean types individually or together. Roasting varieties of beans separately allows the roaster to be more selective and to both preserve and concentrate flavor. Beans vary in size, moisture content, and acidity, and as a result they require different roasting temperatures and times. Only one of the companies whose chocolate we tasted would confirm that it roasts beans separately by type.

Although many experts vouch for roasting independently, our tasting results suggest it's not the only way to produce a high quality chocolate. In fact, a spokesperson for our third-placed brand noted that the company roasts their beans together.

One final production issue is conching, which aerates and homogenizes the chocolate, thereby mellowing the flavor and making its texture smooth and creamy. While eating chocolates are always conched, two producers conch their unsweetened chocolate, and these chocolates finished first and third in our chocolate sauce tasting, where smooth texture was an important consideration.

What About Fat?

We sent all of the chocolates in our tasting to a laboratory to measure fat content as well as pH (acidity), thinking that the higher-fat chocolates would rate better and that the acidity of each chocolate might also have a role to play. The results were mixed. While three of the four top-rated chocolates did have slightly more fat than most of the other brands, the fifth-place brand had the highest fat content of all. As for pH, there was no correlation at all with the results of our tasting.

What do we recommend? The more expensive chocolates were all well liked and received similar scores. Of the three mass-market brands, we can only recommend one. It's important to remember, though, that chocolate, much like coffee, is a matter of personal preference, so consider each brand in order to find a chocolate that suits your palate. The gamut of flavors runs from "nutty" and "cherry" to "smoky," "earthy," and "spicy."