Good question, and a question I get asked often. But what does “bring out the flavour” actually mean? Or, how does sugar “bring out the flavour” of chocolate. Another way I would phrase this is: sugar alters the way we perceive the overall flavour of the chocolate.

Flavour is mostly a combination of what we taste (sweet, sour, bitter...) and smell (exhaling as we eat). However, our other senses also play a part in flavour perception. I won’t go into that here, but something to keep in mind. Flavour is a perception built up in the brain - so what information/stimuli our brain receives via taste, olfaction, etc. will impact our perception of the flavour.

Notice I use the word “perception” here. Many people believe flavour is some well understood science, or something physical our mouth picks up. The truth is, flavour is not understood very well, especially compared to thing such as hearing, seeing, and touch. As well, it’s something processed in the brain which includes a number of complex inputs.

It’s good to keep in mind that taste, aroma, and flavour are often used interchangeably. Taste really is the tastants we pick up in our mouth (not just our tongue). You know what these are: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and savory. Our nose (either while inhaling or exhaling) picks up the aroma molecules within our food. Flavour is a perception in our brain that combines mostly taste and smell, but also other inputs as well.

Sugar does impact our perception of the flavour of chocolate. High quality unflavoured dark chocolate, like the ones you see in the online shop, contain just 2 or 3 ingredients: cocoa bean, sugar, and sometimes cocoa butter (which is just fat from the cocoa bean). When we pick up notes like toast, cherry, or honey in these dark chocolate bars, these are not flavours from ingredients or flavourings added. These are flavour perceptions our brain creates based on what is contained within the chocolate, which in this case is just sugar and cocoa bean.

Therefore, since the composition is so simple, yet the flavour so complex, all these flavour stimuli only come from the chocolate and how it interacts with the sugar. So let’s discuss how the sugar can impact the cocoa bean.

Why does chocolate need sugar?

Some people hate when I say this, but chocolate is essentially peanut butter made from cocoa beans instead of peanuts. From a composition point of view, this is true. It’s a fat based seed, and like many other nuts or seeds such as almonds, hazelnuts, and peanuts, it can be turned into a “butter”. The difference with cocoa beans, is that when they are ground up, the fat solidifies at room temperature (unlike the fat of almonds or peanuts) which is why we can make chocolate bars. Unless the chocolate is heated, we can’t spread it like we do other nut butters.

Many nut butters can easily be consumed without sugar, but not chocolate. Why is that?

The flavour of the cocoa bean

Crushing roasted cocoa beans. The bits inside the thin shell are referred to as “cocoa nibs”.

Cacao bean itself is a very intense flavour, more so than any of the nuts or seeds we often consume. Even a higher quality cacao bean will produce a pretty intense 100% dark chocolate (which is basically only ground up cocoa bean and nothing else).

There are high amounts of polyphenols from the tannins in cocoa bean. Some of these polyphenols, such as flavanols, may be beneficial to our health. However, they also are what make the cacao dark in colour, bitter, and astringent (dry or puckering feeling). The fermentation process of cacao curing reduces this bitterness and astringency somewhat, but also makes cacao beans acidic (from the acids produced by the bacteria in the fermentation mass). There are also many aroma compounds within the cacao which are obtained from the cacao itself (due to genetics) or how it was fermented and roasted.

The grinding and refining of the cacao bean into chocolate either reduces or brings out some of these intense flavours. The grinding allows for more of the polyphenols to be exposed (unlocked from the confines of the cell walls of the cocoa bean) and more accessible to our tongue when we eat it. For this reason, sometimes a pure roasted cocoa bean can be more enjoyable than a 100% dark chocolate bar made from the same bean.

The bottom line is, cocoa beans are intense. Poor quality beans are more bitter with less interesting aromas, and fine quality are less bitter or not bitter at all and contains an array of aromas beyond your typical “cocoa” flavour.

The Parallels with Coffee

Some people love the taste of pure cocoa beans or cocoa nibs, but many prefer it with sugar. It is not so different from coffee, although I’d say more people prefer their black coffee without sugar than their dark chocolate. Why is this?

This comparison of black coffee and dark chocolate is important. Both coffee beans and cocoa beans are brown dark seeds with very intense flavours. They both usually go through a fermentation stage, and are roasted. So why can many people drink their coffee black without sugar, but rarely do people consume 100% dark chocolate bars?

There are many parallels between coffee and chocolate. Both are very intense, and require diluting them to enjoy the more subtle flavours. Coffee is diluted with water whereas the chocolate is diluted with sugar. Image by Dagmara Dombrovska

Coffee is a drink, and the coffee is highly diluted with water. Even espresso is a dilution. Now let’s compare this to chocolate. Chocolate is grinding up the whole kernel of the cocoa bean into a paste and turned into a solid bar. It’s like eating a bar of peanut or almond butter. There is no dilution. People don’t eat a bar of 100% ground up coffee beans. Even pure cocoa nibs are more palatable than pure coffee beans as a crunchy snack. Although many people can drink espresso, those same people can’t usually enjoy a 100% dark chocolate bar, even though coffee beans can be more intense than a good quality cocoa bean.

This way in which we eat chocolate requires us to reduce the intensity to make it more palatable. Unlike coffee, there is not water to dilute the intensity of it. So we use sugar to dilute the intensity. Even just a small amount of 15-20% sugar added to cocoa bean can make for a very enjoyable and palatable chocolate bar.

*Historical Note* chocolate was originally a water based, unsweetened drink. When the Spanish encountered the Maya and Aztec people, they drank their chocolate. It was a water based drink with roasted ground cocoa beans, and mixed with other spices, and most often not sweetened. Sounds a lot like coffee today, doesn’t it? When the chocolate bar was invented in the 19th Century in Europe, they likely realized right away that the only way it would be palatable was to dilute it with sugar. So far we have no coffee bean equivalent to the chocolate bar.

How does sugar changes the flavour?

Speaking of dilution, let’s discuss how “diluting” or tempering 100% dark chocolate with sugar changes the flavour we perceive from it.

Some foods are very harsh and powerful in flavour, and cocoa beans is one of them. Ground up and refined cocoa beans is what we call chocolate, but since it contains the same ingredient as the cocoa bean - it is also very intense if no other ingredients are added.

Therefore, adding a small amount of sugar reduces the intensity of the harsher flavours, be it bitter, sour, or whatever else is contained. It allows our brain to focus on aromas beyond the very intense bitter, astringent, acidic tastes within the chocolate.

We have to temper the intense flavour of the chocolate with some sugar, just like we dilute or temper the intensity of roasted coffee beans with water. Now we can focus on the more subtle and fine aromas within the dark chocolate such as the nutty, fruity, or floral notes.

It’s me not you - Sugar Tolerance

Some may argue that people today of all cultures are too used to sweetened foods. Perhaps a reason why we need sugar in our chocolate. This increase of sugar in our diet includes mostly processed foods (sweet and savory) but also natural fruits and vegetables which have been selected to be more sweet than their wild ancestors (higher sugar content). Therefore, our threshold for sugar is very high, and we require sweeter foods.

I’m sure this may play a part in why we need to add sugar to chocolate. However, as I mentioned above, more people require their chocolate to be sweetened and not their black coffee, and this is due to the way we eat cocoa beans as compared to coffee beans. We need to dilute the intensity of it, and for coffee we use water, and for chocolate we use sugar.

the Type of sugar impacts chocolate flavour

Raw turbinado sugar (left) and unrefined panela sugar (right). The panela sugar is the least refined and the most flavourful, but also more difficult to work with in regards to chocolate making.

Any type of sugar we add needs to be in dry/crystalline form. Like many other seeds (almonds, hazelnuts), cocoa beans are about 50% fat. Since it is a fat-based product, we can’t add water-based ingredients or lipophobic (fat hating) ingredients. It will cause the liquid chocolate to get too thick and create a weird chalky texture.

We can’t add liquid maple syrup or honey, but we can add dry crystalized maple or honey sugar. The most common types of sugar used in chocolate making is refined white sugar or unrefined cane sugar. Other sugars may include coconut sugar, palm sugar, and even alternative sugars (but we won’t go into those here). As long as they are dry and not in liquid form, we can add it to the chocolate making process to sweeten our chocolate.

Sugars not only add sweetness, but many sugars also impart their own aromas to the overall flavour of the chocolate.

There are three main types of sugars used in making chocolate.

Refined Sugar (highly processed - no molasses) - can be white sugar, or brown sugar (white sugar with molasses added after processing). The liquid sugar is highly refined and no molasses is left on it. Examples include regular white sugar of various grain sizes used in most kitchens.
Raw Sugar (moderately processed - much of the molasses removed) - this is the sugar most often used by many craft bean-to-bar makers. The liquid sugar crystalizes, and much of the molasses is washed off. Examples include raw sugar, turbinado, and demerara to name a few.
Unrefined Sugar (least processed - molasses is not removed) - this sugar is not often used alone, but can be mixed into some chocolate recipes along with raw sugar. Due to the high molasses content, even in solid form, it contains more moisture and more lipophobic components than refined and raw sugar. Therefore, it can’t easily be used to make chocolate bars due to the impact the molasses and moisture will have on the chocolate. It will make the chocolate more viscous (thicker) and, more of a challenge to work with, and may make the texture less creamy and more chalky. Examples would be panela, jaggery, and rock sugar to name a few.

Refined white sugar

Refined white sugar just adds sweetness, and nothing else. Refined white sugar is produced in a refinery from either sugarcane or sugar beets. They are made from crude raw sugar, which contains lots of impurities, and requires a great of processing to produce it. It often requires synthetic products to process it, and so is not organic.

White refined sugar doesn’t really impart any flavours. It can change your perception of the chocolate flavour, but doesn’t add any aromas or flavours itself.

Some makers don’t like the idea of refined white sugar because of how much processing was involved. Some prefer sugar in its more natural state such as unrefined cane or coconut sugar. Some vegans have issue with refined white sugar as well, because some of the refining processes may have used bone in the purification process of the sugar. Most refined white sugar comes from sugar beets, but also from sugar cane.

This refined sugar will dilute the intensity of the chocolate bar. If we have a 75% dark chocolate bar of only sugar and cocoa bean, we dilute this chocolate with 25% sugar.

Unrefined and raw sugars

Since these contain molasses from the cooked cane sugar juice, not only will it sweeten the chocolate, but it will also impart those flavours. If you have ever tasted panela for instance, it has a cooked, caramel, molasses flavour to it. These flavours will influence the overall flavour of the chocolate.

Some chocolate makers like this added flavour, as these tend to be aromas most people enjoy. They can even make mediocre chocolate taste even better due to the molasses and caramel flavours it imparts. However, if you think about it from a purists point of view, these added flavours don’t allow for only the flavours of the cocoa bean to come through in the chocolate. The reason why people enjoy single origin dark chocolate, is to appreciate the complexity of the flavours of this specific cacao (type, origin, etc.). This is also why fine dark chocolate shouldn’t contain vanilla too. If the quality of the dark chocolate is aromatic, why would one need to improve it by adding other flavours. You don’t add flavourings to fine espresso or fine wines.

Many fine chocolate makers like the idea of tasting just the flavour of the cocoa bean itself without any other ingredients imparting other aromas to it. These makers tend to use raw sugars as opposed to unrefined, which have most of the molasses washed off, so that the impact of the flavour from this sugar is very minimal.

Other sugars

Sugars can also be used from palm, coconut, maple, date, and others natural sources. As stated above, these need to be in the crystal form and very dry. They often still contain some much of the natural molasses and aromas of that specific sap or juice, and may also impart these flavors into the chocolate to some degree.

Crystal size & Processing impact chocolate flavour

Raw sugar is being added to some liquified cocoa nibs. These two ingredients are really all you need in high quality dark chocolate.

The size of the sugar particles will impact how we receive the flavour of the chocolate. The refining of the chocolate (including time of refining) will also have an impact on the relationship between sugar and its impact on the flavour of the chocolate. These two aspects are often tied together.

When we make dark chocolate, we grind up the cocoa nibs (kernel of the cocoa bean) in a stone grinder until the fat is released and it mass liquifies. Much like grinding up nuts into nut butters. Once all the nibs are liquified, we add the dry sugar crystals. The composition of this mixture is liquid fat (cocoa butter) with cocoa particles and sugar crystals suspended in it.

Let’s look at how both sugar size and refining time work together to influence the flavour of chocolate.

Large crystals & short refining time of dark chocolate

Sugar crystals are large enough that our tongue can feel them
Sugar crystals taste like the sugar itself
When we eat this chocolate, the big crystals of sugar melt on our tongue, and we perceive big hits of sweetness as the sugar stimulates our tongue and mouth
Many of the harsh flavours of the cocoa bean are also still contained within the mixture. Some of these are reduced with longer refining time.
Overall we taste the harsh flavours of the cocoa particles and cocoa butter, although they are tempered with some of the sugar. We also get and big bouts of sweetness from the large sugar crystals

Small crystals & longer refining time of dark chocolate

Sugar crystals are small enough that our tongue and mouth cannot feel them
The grinding and rubbing of the sugar crystals together with the cocoa particles and cocoa butter over a long period of time has transferred some of the flavours from the cocoa particles and butter onto the sugar particles. The sugar particles no longer only taste like the sugar, they have absorbed some of the aromas from the cocoa particles and butter.
If raw or unrefined sugar was used, the aromas within the sugar transfer over to the chocolate mixture
When we eat the chocolate, the smaller particle sizes of the sugar distribute a more even sweetness in our mouth as they dissolve, unlike when they were larger. Think of it like stepping into a small puddle versus a large puddle (less splash!)
As well, many of the harsher flavours of the chocolate are either released out of the mixture (the volatile aromas escape the mixture) and/or are tempered by the sugar. The more subtle aromas, if fine cacao was used, become more apparent due to this tempering
overall the taste of this chocolate is more uniform. It is a combination of the sweetness from the sugar, flavours from the sugar (if any), flavours of the cocoa bean (either present in the bean or created during refining - which can happen), and minus any aromas of the cocoa bean that were released from the mixture during refining.

Amount of sugar

As mentioned earlier, the amount of sugar can impact the overall flavour of the chocolate. Let’s dig deeper into this.

Percentage Impacts sweetness and flavour

What does the percentage on a chocolate bar indicate? It should indicate the percent of cocoa nib in the chocolate. The nib is essentially the cocoa bean with the paper thin shell removed. A pure 70% dark chocolate is 70% cocoa nib (which contains cocoa solids and cocoa butter) and 30% sugar. Sometimes a manufacturer will add a little extra cocoa butter of maybe 5% or so. In some cases this is reflected in the percentage of the bar, since it is considered a constituent of the cocoa nib. Something to keep in mind.

In regards to sugar, how much we “dilute” or temper our chocolate with sugar will impact the overall flavour we perceive. As mentioned earlier, cocoa beans are intense in flavour, whether bulk or fine cacao. Fine cacao is intense with very little bitterness (although novices confuse intensity for bitterness) and poor quality cacao is often quite bitter.

Sugar (and even salt) are known to dim the bitterness of our foods. If your chocolate has a bit too much bitterness, but you don’t want to make it sweeter, combining it with some sea salt can combat that bitterness (but this depends on the type of bitter compounds present). In regards to sugar, the amount of sugar will impact with aromas we perceive in the chocolate, and will alter our overall perception of the flavour of the chocolate.

For instance, if we make a 70% dark chocolate with a Nacional cacao bean from Ecuador, the flavour notes many will pick up may include things such as nutty, cinnamon, floral, herb, cookie, and such. Sort of a warm, earthy, comforting flavour yet light and not too heavy. Now, if we were to use the exact same cacao beans to make an 80% dark chocolate, the flavour could end up being quite different. Let’s also assume roasting and refining time stayed the same. Instead of warm light notes like the ones mentioned above, people will often taste things such as toasted nuts, earthy, tobacco, woody, toast crust. You can see that the only difference is 10% sugar. However, the flavours perceived are still within the warm and earthy flavour spectrum, but this time a lot darker and heavier. Again, the only difference is 10% sugar. No other ingredients were added. Although we can’t yet explain fully the mechanisms of why this is, we can see that the amount of sugar itself can have a huge impact on the overall perception of the chocolate flavour.

Optimal percentage

This is often why we see many dark chocolate bars, especially fine chocolate, in the 70% range give or take a few percent. Why is this? This is sort of a optimal ration of cacao bean to sugar in order to allow certain aromas to be very prominent. Generally, more people prefer the lighter notes like cinnamon, cookie, floral as compared to the heavier notes of earthy, tobacco, and woody. This range is also a level of sweetness which appeals to most people. The maker can produce a chocolate that brings forth flavours most people enjoy, at a level of sweetness most people enjoy.

There really is no optimal percentage, but this is often what you see, and for the reasons explained. Culturally this can shift too. For instance, from my experience, many chocolate makers in South America tend to produce bars on the lower percentage spectrum as opposed to say craft chocolate makers in North America. This also has to do with local clientele and what they expect/want from their chocolate in regards to sweetness level.

The amount of sugar added has to do with impacting the level of sweetness and the aromas which come forth, and this can be very subjective at times.

Too Much sugar

Although sugar can help you perceive favorable flavours, it can also mask them if there is too much. Adding too much sugar will be like adding too much salt to your favourite soup. Let’s say you go to add salt to your soup from the salt shaker, but the cap falls off, and a huge amount of salt ends up in your soup. When you taste the soup afterwards, and all you can taste is salt! You can’t even taste the carrot, tomato, or other vegetables, all you taste is salt! The soup may contain a wonderful array of aromas from the vegetables and stock, but your brain can’t focus on those because it is overwhelmed with how salty it is.

The same can happen with sugar. This will depend on your level of tolerance for sugar. If you rarely eat sugar or sweet foods, what is not too sweet for someone else can be too sweet for you. Also, our tolerance of sugar is much greater in general than our tolerance for salt. This is because our bodies require more sugars/carbohydrates than salt. So if we add too much sugar, we are defeating the purpose and actually masking the nice aromas we want to bring forth.

Too little sugar

That 80% dark chocolate bar I mentioned above still has some very nice flavour notes. However, most people’s tolerance for sugar is into that low, and so is not as appealing to most people. As well, the higher we go, the closer we get back to the 100% chocolate, and the more intense the overall flavour. This intensity will also mask or alter our perception of the more favorable flavours the chocolate maker wants us to perceive. For most people, just like adding too much sugar or salt, too much intensity of the cocoa bean makes it difficult to taste anything else.

Conclusion

Sugar does more than just “bring out the flavour” of chocolate, it impacts the chocolate and our perception of it in a very complex way depending on the type of sugar, the sugar crystal size, how it was refined with the chocolate, and the amount of sugar added. And we haven’t even talked about how it impacts the texture!

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Does sugar bring out the flavour of chocolate?