Scientific question

Cocoa (Theobroma caco) and chocolate have always been among the most popular foods and luxury foods because of their incomparable aroma and taste. Although the flavor code of cocoa and chocolate was deciphered several years ago, it is still not known from which precursors the value-giving ingredients are formed.

Approach

In order to use metabolic markers for objective quality assessment of cocoa, this project aims to gain insights into the most important aroma and flavor precursors in cocoa beans (primary focus is on protein/peptide and lipid-based precursors).

Expected results

The major lipid- and protein/peptide-based aroma and flavor precursors have been identified, and a quantitative determination method has been developed that allows objective analytical quality determination of the raw bean.