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What’s so different in ruby chocolate?

  • Writer: The Edible Science
    The Edible Science
  • Apr 4, 2021
  • 3 min read

Chocolates are everyone’s love. The history of chocolate is fascinating. Originated in ancient Mesoamerica (Mexico) and Mayan civilization as a divine drink and a medicine, chocolates have gained a huge development in the confectionery category. White chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolates are the most common ones in the market. Due to the difference in the intensity of cocoa percentage, the color of the chocolate varies from creamy white to dark brown. Various innovations have been taken place in the category of chocolates such as chocolate bars, chocolate chips, chocolate liquor, chocolate powder, etc. but all these products utilize roasted cocoa beans in the manufacturing process. One of the innovations in this category is the development of ruby chocolate, a pink-colored chocolate which tastes like berries but doesn’t contain berries or berries flavour.


Now the question is why this taste difference occurs if the ruby chocolate is also prepared from the same cocoa beans? What is so different in the processing?

Ruby chocolate is the 4th generation in the chocolate family after white, milk, and dark chocolates. Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest cocoa processors and chocolate manufacturers, has discovered a new processing technique for cocoa beans which gives pink color and berry-like taste. To understand the difference in processing, first we need to understand how cocoa beans are processed commercially to give brown-colored chocolate. The cocoa seeds are covered with mucilage and have an intense bitter taste which needs to be modified by a fermentation process. Fermentation causes the liquefaction of the mucilage, releases the seeds and causes the production of various volatiles. Furthermore, the beans are dried and roasted for the development of volatiles responsible for chocolate flavour. Roasting temperature for the beans is generally in the range of 120-140ᵒC (may go up to 180ᵒC in some cases) for the time of 30-90 minutes. Sometimes cocoa products are treated with alkalizing agents to develop richer and less astringent taste.


In the case of ruby chocolate, the cocoa beans are fermented and dried before size reduction in the form of flakes. Furthermore, the cocoa nibs are treated with food-grade mineral acid (phosphoric acid, lactic acid, citric acid, ascorbic acid or acetic acid) at a pH less than 6 for a time period of 2-8 hours at 50ᵒC. After the treatment, the nibs are dried at a temperature less than 115ᵒC for at least 2 hours.


The major reason for pink color is the presence of polyphenols in the beans. These red nibs comprise at least 20mg/g of polyphenols, where 30mg/g is the preferable one. Various polyphenols which are present in cocoa are catechin, epicatechin, gallocatechin, epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, epigallocatechin gallate, procyanidins, prodelphinidins, and propelargonidine. The taste profile of the ruby chocolate is different from other generations of chocolate. As per the Barry Callebaut, ruby chocolate is neither bitter, milky nor sweet, but has fresh berry fruitiness and luscious smoothness. The spider web chart is shown below which describes the various flavor notes of the ruby chocolate.



After the invention, various organizations have launched their ruby chocolates in the market. First company to launch ruby chocolate in India was ITC, under their brand Febelle as Febelle’s Ruby Gianduja. Nestle Kitkat has also launched their ruby chocolate in a few Asian countries. It is expected that ruby chocolate will be available in the Indian market soon by different brands.



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