From the raw seed to chocolate: Volatile profile of Blanco de Criollo in different phases of the processing chain

Theobroma cacao L. species (Malvaceae family) comprises a large number of varieties: Criollo is a high value, fine flavour type of cocoa, used to produce high quality chocolate products. Flavour, together with taste, is certainly the most important attribute of chocolate: it is the reason of the global success of this product. Whilst the fine flavour attributes depend on the quality of the raw starting material, the aroma compounds typical of this product are developed during its manufacturing process. The volatile emission profiles of each step of the Amedei Srl processing chain of Blanco de Criollo, a very appreciated variety of cocoa, from the raw seeds to the packaged product, were analysed by means of HS-SPME coupled with GC–MS. Pyrazines, esters and aldehydes represent the most important aroma-active compounds identified in all the samples. The multivariate statistical analysis of the results was performed and the PCA biplot evidenced the grouping of the samples based on the phase of the processing chain they belong to. To the best of our knowledge, there are no other published studies on the volatile profiling of the entire processing chain of any kind of cocoa.