What is fine cacao?
You’ve probably asked yourself this before: if I’m eating a 70% dark chocolate bar, doesn’t that just mean it’s dark and bitter? Isn’t it basically the same no matter where it comes from?
Not quite.
Let’s start with the basics: fine cacao vs. bulk cacao.
Fine Cacao
Fine cacao makes up only about 5–10% of the world’s cacao production. It’s valued not just for flavor, but for ethical sourcing, traceability, and the relationships built between farmers and craft chocolate makers.
Bulk Cacao
Bulk cacao is produced and traded for the mass-market chocolate industry, which prioritizes scale, uniformity, and cost-efficiency over flavor or origin. In this system, cacao is treated as a commodity—interchangeable and driven by market price rather than quality. It supplies the vast majority of supermarket chocolate and branded products, where the goal is to meet global demand.
Now take a look at the following pictures:
Bulk cacao
Fine cacao
1st Picture (Bulk): Some beans are visibly moldy, while others are blackened, showing signs of rot, fungal infection, or poor harvesting practices. Unripe, overripe, and damaged beans are often dried together with no sorting. There is little to no quality control—everything gets processed, regardless of condition.
2nd Picture (Fine): Only ripe, healthy pods are selected. After harvesting, the beans go through controlled fermentation, usually in wooden boxes and carefully monitored over several days to develop their flavor profile. During and after drying, damaged, flat, or discolored beans are removed, as even a single defective bean can compromise the quality of the entire batch.
So its only the way cacao is handled and processed that is different?
Not at all. The genetics of the cacao tree play a critical role in shaping its flavor potential, aroma, and overall quality. But genetics alone aren’t enough—realizing that potential depends on what happens afterward: how the cacao is cultivated, harvested, fermented, dried, and ultimately made into chocolate.
Take Chuncho cacao, for example— an heirloom cacao known for its fine flavor potential. Even within Chuncho, there are different genetic lines, each with distinct characteristics. Add to that the influence of terroir and post-harvest handling, and you get even more variation in the final flavor. To illustrate just how much contrast can exist, consider these two bean-to-bar chocolates:
Left (Beaningful, Urubamba): Leans heavily into bright fruit notes, with strong acidity that amplifies its berry-like flavor profile.
Right (Qantu, Ayacucho): Warm, spice notes —cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg.
These two 70% dark chocolate bars each offer a unique taste experience—one vibrant and fruity, the other warm and spiced. That contrast is possible thanks to the unique combination of genetic diversity within Chuncho cacao, the specific conditions where it’s grown, and the way each maker processes and transforms the beans into chocolate. It’s the kind of nuance and expression that’s only possible with fine cacao—where traceability, variety, and careful handling are part of every step. With bulk cacao, all of that is lost. Everything is blended, stripped of identity, and treated as interchangeable.
You can read more about the bean to bar process here!
