It's getting more common for chocolate bar wrappers to state the country of origin for the cacao. But why is this important?
Cacao is like wine, in the sense that the soil, the location, the specific variety of the cacao plant and other factors all influence its aromatic profile. Just like with wine, in the fine-flavour chocolate world, knowing details about the cacao's origin can help give us broad clues about how it might taste.
But it's also important to stress that just listing the country of origin isn't enough to tell us everything we need to know. If I hand you a wine and tell you it's French, will you know exactly how it will taste? Whether it will be full-bodied, tannic, fruity or with notes of oak? Of course not. You'd probably want to ask me additional things, like the region, the growing altitude, the type of soil, the climate, the specific vineyard and even information about the production methods, like whether it's been aged in oak barrels, macerated in the grapeskins, etc.
Chocolate is similar. Two cacao plants can grow in two plantations in the same region of the same country and yet have a different flavour profile (the final chocolate flavour is also influenced by differences in fermentation, drying, roasting and conching, as well as the year the cacao was harvested; we explain in more detail in our article on bean-to-bar chocolate).
Which country produces the best cacao?
The list of the best cacao-producing countries is constantly evolving as growers in origin countries obtain the knowledge and the tools required to bring out the best of their raw material. Currently, the following countries are recognized as producing some of the best cacao in the world:
- Peru: Peru boasts some of the most prized cacao origins in the world, including Chuncho, Piura and San Martín.
- Venezuela: Venezuela is primarily known for the small region of Chuao, home to some of the best cacao in the world, as well as for other regions such as Sur del Lago or Cuyagua.
- Ecuador: Ecuador is famous for its Arriba Nacional cacao, an ancient fine-flavour variety that was once thought to be lost forever but which was then recovered a decade ago. Just be careful, because Ecuador also exports a very high percentage of CCN-51, an industrial cacao that is bland and boring.
- Madagascar: As a cacao origin, Madagascar is automatically associated with the Akesson family, which operates a plantation with excellent cacao at the foot of a volcano in the Sambirano valley. But virtually all the cacao that grows in Madagascar is considered fine-flavour, with flavour profiles that vary depending on the exact location of the respective plantation within the island.
- Brazil: For a long time, cacao was believed to have originated in Central America. Recently, researchers have found evidence that cacao probably originated in the Amazon basin. The Brazilian cacao industry got its introduction to the fine chocolate world with Luisa Abram back in the day, and now there are several more companies working to recover the ancient varieties that can still be found in cacaotals in the jungle.
- Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia:The chocolate scene was slow to take off in Asia, but lately there are more than a few local producers investing a lot of time and effort in creating high-quality chocolate bars using cacao from local plantations.
There are many more regions that produce excellent cacao. Part of the fun for chocolate lovers is the chance to try chocolate from different origins, or comparing two chocolate bars from the same region but developed by two different bean-to-bar makers to see how differences in process, sugar content, or the inclusion of other ingredients like milk, nuts, or local ingredients change the feel of the bar. There are infinite possibilities, but it all starts in the plantation.
Is it worth mixing cacao origins?
Normally, fine-flavour chocolate is produced with cacao beans that come from a single unique location. Cacao contains hundreds of volatile compounds that grant it an exceptionally complex and wide-ranging aromatic profile: it can taste fruity, woody, bitter, acidic, like a specific fruit, smoky, like caramel, deep, light, spiced... The point of making a good chocolate is to bring out the innate aromas present in the cacao fruit so tasters can appreciate what makes it different.
So no, normally there's no point in mixing cacao origins if we're looking for fine-flavour chocolate. The exception is the very few bean-to-bar chocolate makers who combine cacao from two select origins to marry the flavours, but it's rare to see this in the bean-to-bar world.
So then, why do we see so many chocolate bars in the supermarket with a laundry list of cacao origins on a single label?
Normally, this is done to trick the consumer. Big chocolate companies know that we're learning to look for cacao origin, even if we don't understand why; and they know that people are aware of human rights issues and deforestation in cacao plantations in Ivory Coast and Ghana. Adding a small percentage of cacao from somewhere other than these two countries allows the company to announce this "origin" on their chocolate bar wrapper, which makes us think more highly of the chocolate. But it's a ruse. On a real fine-flavour chocolate bar, you won't just get information about a (single) country of origin. The bar will also list other identifying information, such as the region, plantation or cooperative that produces the cacao.
When it comes to chocolate for professional use, mixing origins is a way to obtain a product with a neutral, uniform, predictable flavour that remains consistent across batches. This has its benefits, although at Danielle Pacheco Chocolatier we prefer to ouse single-origin chocolate and adapt to the fact that the flavour can vary slightly between harvests.