Controlling cocoa bean fermentation for enhanced chocolate flavour

可可市场分为散装（95%）和精细/风味（5%）两部分。Fine/flavour提供了一系列水果和花香的味道，除了典型的可可味，它的价格高于散装可可，被精品豆制巧克力生产商使用。哥伦比亚以其优质/风味的可可而闻名，将哥伦比亚的小农户女性可可企业家与英国的精品店和消费者联系起来，为改善这些农民的生计提供了机会。在农场进行的发酵不仅可以去除可可豆中的果肉，还可以将可可豆转化为口感良好、味道浓郁的可可豆，用于制作巧克力。面临的挑战是，由于在农场进行的发酵基本上不受控制，小农场无法生产出高质量的可可豆。因为发酵是由环境中的微生物自然发生的，所以它是不受控制的，而且变化很大，导致可可豆的质量差异很大。加强发酵为改善巧克力的风味和质量提供了新的机会。我们将使用便携式、手持式DNA测序设备，与哥伦比亚的可可小农合作，测量使可可豆发酵的微生物。这将给我们提供关于发酵过程性质的重要线索。通过与路易莎纯素巧克力有限公司（VCBL）在英国生产优质巧克力，以及哥伦比亚的可可农民合作，我们将在农场开发新的方法来更好地进行可可豆发酵，以提高这些哥伦比亚可可豆制成的优质巧克力的风味和质量。这为哥伦比亚农场和英国巧克力制造商提供了一个真正的商业机会，因为未来5年，优质巧克力市场预计将以7 - 10%的速度增长。

The cocoa market is segmented into bulk (95%) and fine/flavour (5%) sectors. Fine/flavour offers a range of fruity and floral tastes, in addition to the typical cocoa flavour, it fetches a premium price over bulk cocoa, and is used by boutique bean-to-bar chocolate producers. Colombia is known for its fine/flavour cocoa, and connecting smallholder female cocoa entreprenuers in Colombia to bean-to-bar boutiques and consumers in the UK offers an opportunity to improve these farmers livelihoods. Fermentation carried out in farms not only removes the pulp from cocoa beans, but also converts cocoa beans into the good-tasting and full-flavoured beans used for chocolate. The challenge is the inability of small farms to produce high quality cocoa beans due to the largely uncontrolled fermentation carried out on-farm. Because fermentation happens naturally by microbes from the environment, it is uncontrolled and can vary widely, giving rise to big differences in the quality of the cocoa beans. Enhancing fermentation offers new opportunities to improve the flavour and quality of chocolate. Using portable, hand-held DNA sequencing equipment we will work with smallholder cocoa farmers on their farms in Colombia to measure the microbes that are fermenting their cocoa beans. This will give us important clues about the nature of the fermentation process. By working with both Vegan Chocolates by Luisa Limited (VCBL) making premium chocolates in the UK, and Colombian cocoa farmers, we will develop new ways on the farms to better perform the cocoa bean fermentation, to improve the flavour and quality of the premium chocolate made from these Colombian cocoa beans. This offers a real business opportunity for both the Colombian farms and UK chocolate maker as the premium chocolate market is expected to expand at 7 - 10% over the next 5-years.