IICCT Chocolate Taster case studies
IICCT Chocolate Taster · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The IICCT Chocolate Taster credential is a professional tasting qualification offered by the International Institute of Chocolate and Cacao Tasting. It is aimed at people who need to evaluate chocolate seriously and describe what they taste in a shared, defensible vocabulary: chocolate makers and their production staff, quality and sensory technicians, pastry and chocolate professionals, cacao traders and buyers, and dedicated enthusiasts moving from hobby tasting to structured assessment. The IICCT Chocolate Taster case studies are 5 cases and about 4,308 words.
1Stalled box fermentation in San Martín: 34% slaty beans and a buyer waiting
A 42-member cooperative in San Martín, Peru, delivers 600 kg of wet Trinitario beans to a central fermentation shed. The pods were cut at peak ripeness and the pulp is sweet, but night temperatures have dropped to 23 °C.
819 words, about 4 min2Fat bloom three weeks after moulding on a 70% dark bar
A 900 kg batch of 70% dark chocolate (Peruvian mass, cane sugar, 11 kg added cocoa butter per 100 kg) leaves a three-roll refiner at D90 20 µm and is conched for 16 hours at 62 °C. It then runs through a continuous tempering machine.
863 words, about 4 min3A smoky Ghanaian lot, a six-week launch and 1.2 tonnes of reference beans
A bean-to-bar maker in Copenhagen receives 2 tonnes of main-crop Ghanaian beans at 7.1% moisture for a 68% bar that must launch in six weeks. In a blind panel of six trained assessors, every sample shows medium-to-high smoke/phenolic and a distinct ham/bacon note; two assessors additionally flag musty/earthy.
776 words, about 4 min4Artwork check on an "Ecuador 72% Single Origin" bar
A small UK maker submits artwork for a 100 g bar. The front reads "Ecuador 72% Dark Chocolate", "Single Origin", "Bean to Bar" and "No Added Sugar".
918 words, about 5 min5Twelve tonnes, four claims and a cooperative that cannot yet segregate at farm level
A mid-size European chocolate company wants 12 tonnes of cacao from a 320-farm cooperative in the Ashanti region of Ghana, to sell as "single origin, deforestation-free, child-labour-free, fine flavour". The cooperative can currently segregate at cooperative level for 60% of volume; the remaining 40% comes from member plots with no GPS polygon, several of which overlap a forest reserve boundary.
932 words, about 5 min