I’ll say it time and again, a good bar of chocolate can make any day better. There are many things about chocolate that makes it irresistible. The flavor, texture, and the aroma all add up to its being head-tilting delectable.

To all the self-proclaimed and true blue chocoholics out there, here’s yet another reason to celebrate. A group of researchers from Germany and Switzerland, which we all know are the leading producers of the best chocolate, are working their tails off to better its taste.

A study was conducted by Christoph Wittmann of Saarland University, Saarbruecken, Germany and his colleagues from the Nestle Research Centre, Lausanne, Switzerland to get to know the process of natural cocoa fermentation even better.

During the research, they were able to find that the fundamental molecule that brings about the development of the flavor of cocoa is acetate. According to Wittmann: "The intensity of the aroma from a fermented bean is amazing."

Wittmann stated that the production of acetate calls for two major nutrients, lactate and ethanol. These are produced by lactic acid bacteria, and yeast, respectively, during the initial fermentation of cocoa pulp sugars. The acetic acid bacteria have a significant influence on processing these two nutrients together through various metabolic pathways, ultimately ending up with the production of acetate.

The findings that they were able to come up with display a fine-tuned collaboration of a multi-species consortium during cocoa fermentation. With this particular research, it’s easier to get a grasp of the concept that when the functions of the acetic acid bacteria and the production of acetate are enhanced, the flavor of cocoa could also be improves.

This research has been published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

And this whole time we thought chocolate couldn’t get any better! Boy are we wrong.

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Joanna Maligaya

Staff Writer/Content Developer at Chocolate University Online

Ever since she can remember, Joanna has always considered chocolate as the ultimate food for her soul. She believes in the saying, “9 out of 10 people love chocolate, and the 10th always lies.”

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