
A Battle to Save Chocolate - fern12
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/science/cacao-fungus-chocolate.html?_r=0
======
rjsw
I expect that Mondelez will start selling empty wrappers soon so cacao
availability won't matter.

------
candiodari
One thing I wonder when looking at chocolate "how it's made" documentaries is
just how much extremely cheap space and labor is needed to produce cacao.

------
d33
BTW, as a European, I was surprised to find why Hershey's Kisses taste like
vomit and it looks like I'm not the only one to see it this way:

[http://elitedaily.com/news/hersheys-chocolate-chemical-in-
vo...](http://elitedaily.com/news/hersheys-chocolate-chemical-in-
vomit/1765784/)

~~~
arkades
Such pseudoscience.

Water is also found in both vomit and chocolate.

They didn't provide any quote suggesting butyrate tastes like vomit, or gives
vomit its distinctive flavor - just that it provides a tang, like /all acids
do/. You wouldn't say that sour butter or Parmesan taste like vomit, but those
were also listed as containing butyrate.

~~~
nl
I also think Hershey chocolate tastes a bit like vomit. Parmesan cheese too. I
wonder if it is a genetic thing that only some can taste, like the bitterness
in Brussel sprouts.

~~~
tpeo
It's not like all vomit tastes the same either, but that's something that
people somehow fail to take into account unless they've been on a couple of
benders.

------
Shivetya
being a fan of Michel Cluizel chocolates, which include many single source
chocolates, I wonder how they perceive these engineered varieties. I was
disappointed in the article because they only concerned it with the big
producers and not the impact on or desires of the old school artisans. With
regard to the chocolates, each does have a distinct taste based on where it is
from and it is fun to see which appeals to whom and why.

Now I don't know where it is grown in Asia but if there is an explosion of
popularity surely there are places in China and India that have good climates.

~~~
wastedhours
They mention Dandelion in there as having a blended bar with the hybrids - if
they can replicate criollo, then hopefully the terroir subtleties will come
out more in the final product.

There are so many variables at the moment, and due to small sizes and wild
differences from batch-to-batch, artisans struggle to maintain consistency as
it is. [0]

Vietnam is good for cacao in Asia. Try Marou.

[0] Source: amateur chocolatier and bean-to-bar experimenter.

------
amelius
I've heard that bananas also genetically show very little variety.

~~~
cygx
We're actually on banana 2.0 (Cavendish banana) - banana 1.0 ('Big Mike') got
wiped out by Panama disease[1], which very well might happen again. The joys
of monoculture!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease)

~~~
senorjazz
Not just mono culuture, but all bananas grown are clones as bananas plants
grow from sucks that shoot out from the roots of the established plant. There
is no genetic diversity at all as they evolved* to be become seedless

*maybe selected, not sure of the correct term

