Inside the lab taste-testing the world's chocolate

Short Wave

NPR

Nature, Daily News, Science, Life Sciences, News, Astronomy

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

Could standardizing chocolate help small-scale farmers? Chocolate scientist Julien Simonis thinks it could help persuade consumers to pay for higher quality chocolate, in turn helping out these growers. Every cacao bean is different, and for a long time, there wasn't a standard way of comparing the quality of chocolate. But in 2009, a sustainable agriculture nonprofit started a program called Cacao of Excellence. The goal was to develop a standard way of evaluating cacao just like those sommelier’s do with wine. So today, we’re going behind the scenes of a chocolate laboratory to see just how cacao is evaluated.

This story was originally reported for NPR by science correspondent Ari Daniel. Read the full story here.

If you liked this episode, check out our episodes on how climate change is hurting chocolate production and how some people are making chocolate alternatives.

Interested in more chocolate science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.4	Hey, short wavers, it's Regina Barber.
0:07.4	And today we're talking chocolate?
0:10.3	Do I have that right?
0:11.3	You sure do, Regina.
0:12.7	Awesome.
0:13.4	Okay, this is science reporter Ari Daniel.
0:15.9	Hey, Ari.
0:16.5	Hi, Regina.
0:17.5	I love chocolate, dark chocolate specifically.
0:20.3	Me too, but milk. Oh, I do not like milk chocolate. But I respect you, Regina. I love chocolate, dark chocolate specifically. Me too, but milk.
0:21.4	Oh, I do not like milk chocolate, but I respect you, Ari.
0:26.1	And I know from our reporting at Shortwave and prices at the grocery store that there's shortage of chocolate, like due to many things, the climate crisis being one of them because of where it's grown. I would love any
0:39.3	good news about my beloved chocolate. Well, you've come to the right place. Thank goodness.
0:43.7	And to find that good news, we are going to start about 100 miles north of Rome in this hilly village.
0:52.2	It's called Perugia, and we're headed to the Chocolate Experience Museum.
0:57.1	Yes, I need to go there so bad.
0:59.8	You should.
1:00.5	It's an incredible place.
1:01.8	And tucked inside this museum is a lab that is dedicated to processing cacao.
1:11.2	Cacao being what chocolates made from.
1:14.0	Exactly.
	...

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