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Chocolate and Cocoa Aroma

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Nutrition and Health book series (NH, volume 7)

Key Points

  • Chocolate- and cocoa-specific aroma is formed during roasting of fermented, but not of unfermented, cocoa beans.

  • Essential components of the chocolate- and cocoa-specific aroma are generated by heat-induced Maillard reactions of free amino acids and peptides with reducing sugars.

  • Essential aroma precursors are derived from the vicilin (7S)-class globular storage protein of the cocoa beans by acid-induced successive degradation by endogenous aspartic endoprotease and carboxypeptidase activities.

  • Effects of the time course of acidification and the final pH values of cocoa fermentations on the aroma potential of the resulting raw cocoa are due to the differential pH optima of the aspartic endoprotease and the carboxypeptidase of the cocoa beans.

  • Genotype-dependent differences in the aroma potential of cocoa clones are at least partly due to varying contents of the vicilin (7S)-class globular storage protein and/or the amounts and activities of the aspartic endoprotease and carboxypeptidase of the cocoa beans.

Keywords

Aroma components Aspartic endoprotease Carboxypeptidase Cocoa beans Free amino acids Maillard reactions Peptides Storage protein Vicilin (7S)-class globulin 
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© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Institute for BiochemistryCharité – University Medicine BerlinBerlinGermany

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