Cool hi-tech Chocolate Images..... from The Secret Chocolate Laboratory

A very unusual, sneak peek at Chocolate Nanotechnology....

It may look a moon crater but it is actually a microscope image of a tiny micro-bubble in our Theo Venezuela Darkest of Dark Chocolate bar! This image was taken on a special Electron Microscope designed for ultra high-resolution imaging of Organic materials such as Chocolate.

Note the scale on the bottom right hand side of the picture (40 microns).

A close up view shows even more detail (note scale of 10 microns - roughly the diameter of a red blood cell)

At this resolution we can start to see the amorphous structure of the chocolate. The Cocoa Butter coats the other particles in chocolate during the refining and conching process to produce an unusual morphology.

Chocolate taste and mouth-feel are a combination of the flavors from the ingredients in the chocolate AND the particle size of the ingredients. The Human palate is only sensitive down to 50 microns or so. Once the grain size of chocolate gets below 50 microns, changes in particle size of the food are perceived as changes in taste or mouth-feel. Smaller particles in chocolate produce a finer texture and if very finely ground produce a "clay-like" mouthfeel (common in certain styles of European Chocolate).

Thus high resolution chocolate images give a feel for what the chocolate may look like but also relate to how it tastes!!

Comments

[Dr Chocolate]

Interestingly nitrous oxide makes good tasting bubbles in Chocolate according to British Chocolate Researchers:

http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?id=61301-chocolate-bubbles-gas

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1750-3841.2007.00313.x

[Tudza]

Indeed, bubble size must be important. Aside from the difference in taste of the primary sweetener in diet sodas from regular sodas, the texture on the tongue is noticeably different. In fact, I dislike diet sodas more for this reason than taste.