Inside the lab taste-testing the world's chocolate

Could standardizing chocolate help small-scale farmers? Chocolate scientist Julien Simonis thinks it could help persuade consumers to pay for higher quality chocolate, in turn helping out these growers. Every cacao bean is different, and for a long time, there wasn't a standard way of comparing the quality of chocolate. But in 2009, a sustainable agriculture nonprofit started a program called Cacao of Excellence. The goal was to develop a standard way of evaluating cacao just like those sommelier’s do with wine. So today, we’re going behind the scenes of a chocolate laboratory to see just how cacao is evaluated. This story was originally reported for NPR by science correspondent Ari Daniel. Read the full story here https://www.npr.org/2026/05/10/g-s1-120911/chocolate-certified-cacao-standards-evaluate-coffee-wine. If you liked this episode, check out our episodes on how climate change is hurting chocolate production http://lnk.to/m5yb6y and how some people are making chocolate alternatives http://lnk.to/YKWjWt. Interested in more chocolate science? Email us your question at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave http://plus.npr.org/shortwave. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:15Speaker 00

  You're listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 0:20Regina Barber?

  Hey, Shortwavers. It's Regina Barber. And today, we're talking chocolate? Do I have that right?

• 0:25Speaker 02

  You sure do, Regina.

• 0:27Regina Barber?

  Awesome. OK. This is science reporter Ari Daniel. Hey, Ari.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Hi, Regina.

• 0:32Regina Barber?

  I love chocolate, dark chocolate specifically.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  Me too, but milk.

• 0:36Regina Barber?

  Oh, I do not like milk chocolate. But I respect you, Ari.

• 0:41Regina Barber?

  And I know from our reporting at Short Wave and prices at the grocery store that there's shortage of chocolate, like, due to many things, the climate crisis being one of them, because of where it's grown. I would love any good news about my beloved chocolate.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Well, you've come to the right place.

• 0:57Regina Barber?

  Thank goodness.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  And to find that good news, we are going to start about 100 miles north of Rome in this hilly village. It's called Perugia. And we're headed to the Chocolate Experience Museum.

• 1:11Regina Barber?

  Yes, I need to go there so bad.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  You should. It's an incredible place. And tucked inside this museum is a lab that is dedicated to processing cacao.

• 1:25Regina Barber?

  Cacao being what chocolate's made from.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Exactly. And Julia Butak, a lab assistant here, starts by sifting a bag of beans.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Yes, you're just removing the little bits that aren't full beans.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's really physical work.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  Julia is from the Philippines. She was never a huge chocolate fan, actually, but her job here has helped her gain a deeper appreciation for the stuff.

• 1:55Regina Barber?

  Yeah, I bet. All that work.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  To see the development of the flavor, like nuts, fruits, spice, it satisfies you.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  How would you define your relationship with the chocolate you work with?

• 2:07Speaker 03

  It's my baby, I would say. I need to care. I need to look after it.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Julia says that, like people, each kind of cacao is special. And I want to tell you about this process because it, in turn, is rather special. For a long time, there wasn't a standard way of comparing the dizzying array of cacao beans that are produced on farms across the tropics.

• 2:31Regina Barber?

  OK, so you mean like chocolate having different tastes and different smells, kind of like a wine sommelier would have this internationally agreed upon rubric?

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Yes, that's true. But then, in 2009, this sustainable agriculture nonprofit headquartered in Rome started a program called Cacao of Excellence. And they began working to develop a standard way of preparing and evaluating cacao, just like those sommeliers do with wine.

• 3:02Regina Barber?

  Today on the show, cacao, documenting its splendor. And by doing so, helping a growing number of small-scale farmers. I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

• 3:20Speaker 04

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  This message comes from Edward Jones, where they believe rich isn't about having life all figured out. It's opening yourself to all the possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor provides long-term planning built around you, meeting you where you are and helping you get closer to where you want to be. So no matter where you're starting from or wherever life takes you, you can move forward with confidence. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 4:44Regina Barber?

  Follow us to make sure you never miss a new episode. New ones drop every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. All right, Ari, earlier we got a hint of the chocolate-making process, but that chemistry is some of the most delicious science I know of. So I want to give you a chance to walk us through the rest of it.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  OK, so to continue the process, Julia takes 50 of the beans, Regina, and slices them in half nearly simultaneously with something that looks a lot like a guillotine.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  That's satisfying. A chocolatey fragrance wafts into the air, and it's mixed with notes of citrus. Julia records her impressions on a spreadsheet.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Next, she roasts a bunch of the remaining beans for a specific amount of time

• 5:36Speaker 02

  before separating out the shells and then running the nibs through a mill.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Oh, I just got a... That smells like chocolate. Yeah. It's intoxicating. I don't know how you get any work done. Julia then adds a precise amount of sugar and cocoa butter and tempers it all before pouring the resulting chocolate into molds.

• 5:57Regina Barber?

  OK, so the point of all this is that those beans, the way they're being prepared is being standardized so that you can compare them. How did the Cacao of Excellence program go about working out the standard method of handling cacao?

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Well, they relied on a team of people, including Julien Simonis, a chocolate scientist who now serves as the program manager.

• 6:18Regina Barber?

  So I became the wrong kind of scientist. I should have been a chocolate scientist.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  It's never too late.

• 6:25Regina Barber?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never heard of this job.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Me neither, but that's why I was so excited for Julien to take me to this park in the middle of Rome, where he tells me that having standards for cacao, like they do with wine, or hazelnuts, or olive oil, or coffee,

• 6:44Regina Barber?

  Right.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  could do a lot for that industry.

• 6:47Speaker 05

  Harmonizing the way of talking about a food product, it's to see the differences, to let people appreciate it.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  And that can help persuade consumers to pay for higher-quality chocolate, money that, at least in part, can find its way back to the farmers. Because what happens is that farmers across the tropics will produce large amounts of cacao during the year, and then that cacao gets transported away, and it moves through the supply chain, eventually making it to the places where it's turned into chocolate and sold and upsold to consumers. But those farmers don't often get that much in terms of compensation. And that's especially true in two of the countries that produce the most cacao globally, Ivory Coast and Ghana.

• 7:33Speaker 05

  A lot of the cacao producers live under poverty limits. And so there are a lot of economic challenges, access to markets, access to education.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  It took years, but the team now has a process that they stand behind.

• 7:50Speaker 05

  And so it's been revised, it's been adapted, it's been challenged.

• 7:54Regina Barber?

  And this whole thing starts in that lab, in the Chocolate Experience Museum in Perugia?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Yes, and the second half happens in the mouth. Julien has a tote full of samples from the lab.

• 8:08Speaker 05

  You want to taste?

• 8:09Speaker 02

  The only answer is yes, Regina. So Julien, in that moment, he selects a small chocolate from Peru, and it's wrapped in gold foil. So he unwraps it.

• 8:23Speaker 05

  Let it cover well your palate and your tongue.

• 8:26Regina Barber?

  He's like whispering to you. He's great.

• 8:33Regina Barber?

  What is that? What is that sound? Is he breathing?

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Yes, he's using this breathing technique that he tried to teach me to heighten his perception of the chocolate's aroma and taste, where he breathes in through the mouth and then out through his nose.

• 8:48Regina Barber?

  It's like wine.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, very much so.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  So it's extremely creamy?

• 8:53Speaker 02

  He describes a splash of sultanas that gives way to a nuttiness.

• 8:58Regina Barber?

  What is a sultana?

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Like a small raisin.

• 9:01Regina Barber?

  Oh, OK. I want to try these, like, today.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  You should. If I have any that are remaining from my stash, I'll bring them to you the next time I see you.

• 9:11Regina Barber?

  Excellent, excellent.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  So the next one he selects is a chocolate from Hawaii.

• 9:16Speaker 05

  Let's go.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Julien looks reverent.

• 9:20Speaker 05

  My god. Each time I taste these, I'm always amazed. You have a boost of acidity, this burst of fresh flavors.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  He tastes fruits and a hint of cardamom and nutmeg.

• 9:33Regina Barber?

  Wait, so these two chocolates were processed and prepared identically?

• 9:38Speaker 02

  That's right. So any differences?

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Are only coming from the cacao bean.

• 9:43Regina Barber?

  Wow, science.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Simonis relies on a panel of 15 or so professional tasters to evaluate a chocolate's unique blend of acidity, bitterness, stringency, and more. They've got this whole flavor wheel that they showed me.

• 9:57Regina Barber?

  Love it.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  The result is a standardized way of comparing chocolate, allowing cacao to be priced and valued according to its quality.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  We are trying to work with every single producing country in the world.

• 10:11Regina Barber?

  So have they made progress towards that goal?

• 10:13Speaker 02

  They've made a lot of progress, actually. I connected with Rung Khampan in Thailand. He's the founder of Tintin Chocolate, and he says that this program raised his small family farm's visibility and helped improve the product.

• 10:26Speaker 06

  Cacao of excellence gives small producers a chance to be seen and recognized. I believe it will help increase my income in the future.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Some producers have already seen improved sales, Regina, like the Wanlaua Farm in the forests of Peru. Rosao de Lourdes runs the farm there and says the extra revenue is about more than just the money.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  I think this is a good way to dignify the laborers and change the mind of people regarding the farmers.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Above all, she says that this effort is allowing cacao producers, buyers, and consumers to finally speak the same language, one that can describe those magic beans that we transform into chocolate.

• 11:12Regina Barber?

  See, we did get to the good news, Ari. Thank you so much. This was delightful.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Of course, Regina. Thanks for having me and remind me when I see you to bring you that chocolate.

• 11:21Regina Barber?

  I will not forget.

• 11:24Regina Barber?

  Don't worry.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  I don't doubt it.

• 11:27Regina Barber?

  If you liked this episode, check out our other episode on how climate change is hurting chocolate production and how some people are coming up with chocolate alternatives. We'll link to it in our show notes. Thanks for listening, Short Wavers. And if you liked this episode, give us a follow on the NPR app or wherever else you may be listening from. This episode was produced by Nora Gill. It was edited by showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you so much for listening to Short Wave from NPR.

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