Our weekly roundup of chocolate related news, politics and products. See what’s happened every Sunday.
Happy Easter
What happens when you combine Jesus, eggs, chocolate and rabbits? Easter. What happens when you pour molten aluminum onto a chocolate Easter bunny? It melts. And it looks really safe too.
Warm chocolate uncool
Since the world is getting hotter shipping chocolate without having it melt in transit is going to be an expensive challenge. Refrigeration isn’t cheap, it used lots of energy or insulation. We need a futuristic solution. Like magic space gas.
Futuristic problem
Speaking of futuristic solutions: the fungus that causes pod rot in cacao trees reproduces itself by cloning. Apparently this is a thing that happens when fungus are happy and healthy. So become a perfect person and you’ll just split into two! No fuss, possibly some muss.
The sun rises in the yeast
Bacteria, microbes and fermentation are amazing and give us so much of our staple food. Genetically sequencing yeasts has revealed a wide range of flavor making little beasts. Cacao and coffee yeasts having even more diversity than wine. They infect your food with flavor.
Vietnam gets ICCO status
Vietnam gets awarded status as a producer of fine flavor beans by the International Cocoa Organization, this brings the total to 18 (see the rest here) and they are the second country from Asia in the list. Clearly all the work being done in Vietnam is paying off.
That’s all the news for this week! See you next Sunday.
Chris/Vancouver
Being the son of a chocolatier Chris has always enjoyed talking about chocolate as much as he loves eating it. He’s an artist and designer as well as a co-founder of the Chocolate Codex.