Cocoa is back! And it’s a major investment opportunity in Trinidad and Tobago. We spent a week with the Cocoa Research Centre in the University of the West Indies producing a series of videos on the entire process from the bean to the bar. Trinitario cocoa is sought after by the best chocolate makers all over the world and we are proud to share this story.
Full video transcript:
From the finest cocoa, comes the finest chocolate. Trinidad and Tobago’s Cocoa Research Centre is housed at the University of the West Indies, emphasizing the academic and scientific approach to processing the finest cocoa beans into Award Winning Chocolate. Cocoa has played an integral part in the history, culture and economics of Trinidad and Tobago, and indeed Trinidad is regarded as the origin of of Trinitario cocoa. Beans from Trinitario cocoa possess unique ancillary flavour notes sought after by the world’s best chocolatiers. After the fermentation and drying process, carefully stored and aged beans are cleaned and graded, prior to roasting. Both bean size and moisture are important considerations. A fixed quantity of sorted beans is weighed and placed in special stainless steel trays. The oven is preheated to a suitable temperature, depending on the potential ancillary notes to be expressed in the bean. and the tray’s quickly inserted, while a timer is set to record the roasting time. Roasting conditions are tailored to either promote the expression of intrinsic fruity and floral ancillary flavours or to preserve the more delicate nutty or caramel notes of various cocoas. After the set time, the beans are removed from the oven and placed on cooling racks. Breaking and winnowing take place immediately once the beans have cooled to ensure that no off-flavours are picked up from the environment. Beans are broken in specialised manual or mechanical breaking machines before being fed into a winnower. The winnower is used to separate the “nibs” and shells using an air stream to either blow the lighter shells away from the heavier nib or with a cyclone effect created with a vacuum, to suck up shells. Shells come out on one side and nibs on the other. In the fine cleaning process, residual shells are manually removed with tweezers to take the shell content to effectively zero. After fine cleaning the nibs are stored in airtight storage containers or in high quality snap seal bags suitable for food use. Further processing happens either immediately or within 48 hours. The nibs are pre-ground to a coarse paste which is then introduced into the melanger for milling into a liquor. Then the other ingredients are added, according to recipe: Sugar, cocoa butter and lecithin. A particle size range of between 20 to 25 microns is a critical parameter in determining the milling end point. Conching continues from milling and promotes flavour development through frictional heat release of volatiles, acids and oxidation. A three-roll refiner further reduces the particle size to between 14 to 16 microns, for optimal flavour expression. Tempering produces a uniform sheen, sharp snap and crisp bite in the chocolate pieces. The chocolate must first be heated to 45 degrees Celsius. This is to melt all six forms of crystals that can be formed by the fats in cocoa butter. Next, the chocolate is cooled to about 27 degrees Celsius. At this time, the chocolate is agitated to create many small crystal seeds. The chocolate is then heated to about 31 degrees Celsius to eliminate any Type 4 crystals, leaving just Type 5. Moulding and cooling the bars or pieces in the chiller immediately follow. Cooled, moulded chocolate is removed from the chiller and inverted to remove the solidified chocolate pieces, which are carefully wrapped in special chocolate grade foil that does not react with the fats present in the chocolate. Careful folding gives a smooth finish to the foil over the bar, a paper wrapper and ready to enjoy.