Chocolate by the Numbers

To a chocolate enthusiast, a day without chocolate is…well, just a really bad idea. Dark chocolate lifts our spirits, and as mounting medical evidence shows, it is high in cancer-fighting antioxidants. The higher the cacao percentage in the chocolate, the more antioxidants—a good reason to be grateful that more manufacturers are packaging their chocolates with the cacao percentage on the label.

A premium dark chocolate bar contains only a few ingredients: chocolate liquor (the roasted and crushed cacao beans), cocoa butter, sugar, lecithin and vanilla. The cocoa butter makes the chocolate taste smooth and rich, the sugar makes it palatable, and the lecithin, an emulsifier, enhances the satiny texture.

Without cocoa butter and sugar, chocolate would be difficult to enjoy. (Think of unsweetened chocolate.) But the more cocoa butter and sugar a manufacturer adds, the less pronounced the chocolate flavor. That’s why many connoisseurs seek out “high-percentage chocolates”—those with a high percentage of cacao. The higher the percentage of cacao in the chocolate, the lower the percentage of sugar. Any chocolate bar above about 65 percent cacao would probably be considered a high-percentage chocolate.

Don’t misinterpret this information. Chocolates below 65 percent cacao are not necessarily inferior, and those above 65 percent are not necessarily superior. Nor will two 65 percent chocolates from different manufacturers taste the same. The quality of beans and the care with which they are processed matters greatly. And remember that the “percent cacao” includes both chocolate liquor and cocoa butter. A chocolate that contains more liquor and less butter will have a more intense chocolate taste.

The only way to determine what you like is to sample a lot of chocolate of different percentages from various manufacturers. (Tough job, huh?) Taste critically, with all your senses. Let the chocolate melt slowly on your tongue and evaluate the texture—is it grainy, waxy or silky? Try to put words to the flavors. Is it winy, fruity, floral, coffee like, roasted, acidic or bitter? Do the flavors linger, or do they vanish quickly?

For an even more enlightening chocolate experience, invest in some of the new single-origin or estate-grown chocolates—bars from one specific region or even a single plantation. Like wines from distinct appellations, chocolate can exhibit terroir—the signature of a particular place. But only in recent years have chocolatiers begun to label chocolates by origin. For aficionados, the chance to taste these chocolates can be, in the words of Maricel Presilla, author of The New Taste of Chocolate, “a cacao education in a single bite.”