Dark chocolate glossary

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Bean-to-bar: A maker who starts from fermented, dried cacao beans and does every step after that, from roasting to molding.
Bittersweet: A US label for chocolate with at least 35 percent chocolate liquor. Same rule as semisweet.
Bloom: A white or gray film on chocolate. Fat bloom comes from heat, sugar bloom from moisture. Cosmetic, safe to eat.

Cacao: The tree, the pod and the beans. Many makers say cacao before roasting and cocoa after.
Cacao nibs: Roasted, cracked cacao beans with the shell removed. Crunchy, bitter, fruity, and the raw material of every bar.
CCN-51: A high-yield cacao clone bred in Naranjal, Ecuador. Farmers rely on it. Makers find its flavor hard to make fine.
Chocolate liquor: Ground cacao nibs, liquid from their own fat. It is 100 percent cacao, and the name is centuries old.
Cocoa butter: The fat in cacao, about half of a nib. Added to bars for a silkier melt. Best when pressed from the same beans.
Conching: Hours or days of warm stirring that drive off acids and moisture and smooth the texture. Invented by Rodolphe Lindt in 1879.
Couverture: Professional chocolate made with extra cocoa butter for coating and molding. What many shops buy instead of making from the bean.
Criollo: The historic fine cacao of Central and northern South America. Pale beans, gentle flavor, fragile trees, rare in pure form.
Cut test: Slicing dried beans to check fermentation. Brown and open is good. Gray and slaty means unfermented.

Direct trade: Buying cacao straight from farmers or co-ops, usually above market price. No single standard, so look for published prices.
Dutched: Cocoa treated with alkali to darken it and soften acidity. Labeled processed with alkali in the US.

Fermentary: A central operation that buys fresh wet beans from farmers and ferments and dries them under control. Kokoa Kamili is one.
Fermentation: Two to seven days of microbes working through the pulp around the beans. Where chocolate flavor begins.
Fine flavor: An ICCO category for cacao with a complex flavor profile. A small share of the world crop, mostly Latin American.
Finish: How long the flavor lasts after you swallow. Long and clean is the goal.
Forastero: A broad group of Amazonian cacao. Its Amelonado type grows most of the world's crop, mostly in West Africa.

Heirloom cacao: Cacao designated by the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund after a tasting panel, a site visit and genetic tests.

Inclusion: Anything mixed into a bar: nibs, salt, nuts, fruit. Good ones let the chocolate lead.

Lecithin: An emulsifier, usually soy or sunflower, that thins chocolate. Capped at 1 percent in the US.

Melanger: A stone grinder with granite wheels rolling in a drum. The workhorse of small bean-to-bar makers.

Nacional: Ecuador's floral native cacao, behind the old Arriba style. Largely displaced, with a pure stand found again in Peru.

Percentage: How much of the bar's weight came from cacao, liquor plus added butter. The rest is mostly sugar.

Refining: Grinding cacao and sugar to about 15 to 30 microns, too small for the tongue to feel.
Roast profile: A maker's time and temperature plan for one origin. Lighter keeps fruit, darker brings cocoa and nuts.

Semisweet: A US label for chocolate with at least 35 percent chocolate liquor. Interchangeable with bittersweet.
Single estate: A bar from one named farm, estate or fermentary. More precise than single origin.
Single origin: Cacao from one country or region. A description, not a quality mark.
Snap: The clean crack of well-tempered chocolate. The first test at any tasting.

Tempering: Melting, cooling and rewarming chocolate so the cocoa butter sets in Form V. Gives gloss, snap and a clean melt.
Trinitario: Hybrids of Criollo and Forastero, first planted in Trinidad. Flavor varies widely, often fruity with sour-cherry acidity.

Winnowing: Blowing the papery shell away from cracked roasted beans to leave the nibs.

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