Dark chocolate bitterness can be reduced with green coffee, finds Callebaut

08-Mar-2013 - Last updated on 11-Mar-2013 at 17:39 GMT

Barry Callebaut says its coffee method can reduce the bitterness of high cocoa chocolate

Barry Callebaut has developed a formula to reduce the bitterness of high cocoa chocolate using green coffee that doesn’t give a coffee taste and ups antioxidant content.

The company has filed a patent, made public yesterday, detailing a chocolate composition using powdered unroasted/green or mildly roasted coffee beans as filler.

“On the one hand, this ingredient serves as volume filler replacing cocoa by cheaper coffee; on the other hand, it considerably reduces the bitter taste frequently associated with high-cocoa chocolate,” the patent application reads.

Under the formula, coffee partially replaces cocoa thereby masking cocoa bitterness, resulting in a mild cocoa taste, but without a coffee flavor.

Antioxidant boost

Callebaut said that green coffee could even be used to up antioxidant content and natural sweetener stevia could substitute sugar.

“In addition, mildly processed green coffee beans contain high amounts of phenolic compounds such as chlorogenic acid. Therefore, chocolate enriched in polyphenols and which lacks any coffee flavor can be produced.”

Callebaut will hope its formula will make chocolate containing over 40% cocoa more attractive to consumers who complain high cocoa products taste too bitter.

How it works

Under the composition, powdered unroasted (green coffee) or mildly roasted coffee beans are added 1 to 60%, of the weight of the product.

Cocoa beans may be of any origin and it doesn’t matter if they are unfermented. The cocoa liquor is also made by standard processes.

Adding the coffee

Prior to adding the coffee, the mildly roasted beans are made softer by soaking or with heat before being ground together with cocoa beans to make a coffee-cocoa liquor, while green coffee is mixed in after the cocoa beans have been roasted separately.

EU and US regulation permit ground coffee as an optional ingredient in cocoa products.

Coffee beans will not develop a coffee aroma when processed under the temperatures needed for cocoa. Coffee beans start to develop a recognizable coffee taste when roasted around 200 °C or higher for at least 1 hour, but roasting temperatures for cocoa beans are around 120°C.