Shelves of craft chocolate bars from many makers stacked on wire racks under a fall leaf garland at The Ambrosian Pantry

Craft Chocolate: The Complete Guide

Published 14 min read

Filed under Chocolate Bars

A craft chocolate bar and a supermarket candy bar share a word and very little else. The craft bar starts with beans a maker chose by farm or fermentary, then roasted and ground under its own roof. This guide follows a bar from the fermentary to the wrapper to the cupboard, and ends with what the health, allergen and pet-safety evidence says. The deeper pieces it draws on are linked as they come up.

What makes a bar craft chocolate

The useful line is between a maker and a remelter. A bean-to-bar maker buys cacao beans, then roasts, cracks, winnows, grinds, conches, tempers and molds them itself; the bean-to-bar process piece walks through every step. A remelter buys finished chocolate in bulk and melts it into new shapes. Remelted chocolate can be excellent, but the choices that decide flavor, which beans and how they were roasted, were made by someone else.

The simplest version of the maker's approach is the two-ingredient bar. Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco describes its method as crafting chocolate with just two ingredients, cocoa beans and sugar. Its producer guide covers the house in detail, as do the guides to Dick Taylor, Amano of Orem, Utah, and Cuna de Piedra. Anyone new to the term can start with the short introduction to bean-to-bar.

Where cacao grows, and where its flavor is shaped

Cacao is older and further south than the familiar Maya and Aztec story suggests. Starch grains, theobromine residues and ancient DNA recovered at the Santa Ana-La Florida site in southeast Ecuador show cacao in use about 5,300 years ago, among the earliest evidence of cacao use anywhere in the Americas. The finds point to the upper Amazon as the oldest center of cacao domestication yet identified. The chocolate history piece follows the road from there to the modern bar. Today the International Cocoa Organization puts about 70 percent of world production in West Africa, a supply chain traced in the piece on Ghana and the cocoa value chain.

Much of a bean's flavor potential is shaped after harvest, in fermentation and drying, which is why two origin names, Maya Mountain and Kokoa Kamili, belong to fermentaries rather than farms. Maya Mountain Cacao in the Toledo district of southern Belize buys from 411 farmers and ferments the beans centrally in a linear box system for six to seven days, then dries them on greenhouse decks for one to two weeks. Kokoa Kamili in Tanzania's Kilombero Valley buys wet beans from roughly 2,000 smallholders and runs what it describes as the only commercial cocoa fermentary in the country, monitoring pH and temperature throughout. The ICCO notes that the best quality cocoa is always produced when beans are fully dried, to about 7.5 percent moisture, in the sun. Inside a cacao fermentation box explains what happens during that week in the box.

Single origin has no definition in the US or EU chocolate standards. On the Maya Mountain and Kokoa Kamili bars it names a fermentary, not a single farm. The single-origin versus blended piece sets out what each approach offers a maker and a buyer.

Variety names on the wrapper

Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario are the old trade words, and they are looser than they sound. A 2008 genetic study of 1,241 cacao samples found ten distinct clusters rather than the two groups traditionally recognized, and proposed naming them Marañon, Curaray, Criollo, Iquitos, Nanay, Contamana, Amelonado, Purús, Nacional and Guiana. The ICCO says there is no universally accepted criterion for separating fine or flavour cocoa from bulk cocoa. One variety claim with a check behind it is a designation from the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund, a nonprofit founded in 2012 in partnership with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and the Fine Chocolate Industry Association, which identifies heirloom cacao through genetic and flavor analysis.

Reading the wrapper

A chocolate wrapper mixes words that food law defines with words it does not. The defined ones come first.

The name is law, and the two big codes count differently

American standards start from chocolate liquor, the ground roasted bean, which must hold 50 to 60 percent cacao fat and may itself be sold as unsweetened, bitter or baking chocolate. That is the legal category a 100 percent bar falls into. European rules count total dry cocoa solids instead, and they require most chocolate to print that figure with the word minimum beside it. The American code requires no percentage at all, and neither code defines the word dark.

Name United States, 21 CFR 163 European Union, Directive 2000/36/EC
Chocolate, sweet or plain Sweet chocolate: at least 15 percent chocolate liquor Chocolate: at least 35 percent total dry cocoa solids, at least 18 percent cocoa butter, at least 14 percent dry non-fat cocoa solids
Semisweet or bittersweet At least 35 percent chocolate liquor; the two words are interchangeable Not separate categories
Milk chocolate At least 10 percent chocolate liquor, 12 percent total milk solids, 3.39 percent milkfat At least 25 percent total dry cocoa solids and 14 percent dry milk solids
Family milk chocolate No equivalent At least 20 percent total dry cocoa solids and 20 percent dry milk solids
White chocolate At least 20 percent cacao fat, 14 percent total milk solids, 3.5 percent milkfat; no more than 55 percent sweetener At least 20 percent cocoa butter and 14 percent dry milk solids
Couverture No equivalent At least 35 percent total dry cocoa solids, including at least 31 percent cocoa butter and 2.5 percent dry non-fat cocoa solids
Emulsifier Capped at 1 percent in sweet chocolate Not set by the directive; governed by general EU food-additive rules
Other vegetable fats Covered by a separate standard, sweet chocolate and vegetable fat coating (21 CFR 163.155) Up to 5 percent allowed if the label states that it contains vegetable fats in addition to cocoa butter

The percentage, and why two 70s differ

The number on the front is generally the share of the bar by weight that came from the cacao bean, cocoa butter included, and cocoa butter can be added separately. Two bars can print 70 percent and hold different amounts of non-fat cocoa solids. Taking liquor at 55 percent fat, the midpoint of the federal range, the arithmetic runs like this:

Bar A: 70 liquor, 30 sugar Bar B: 58 liquor, 12 added butter, 30 sugar
Printed percentage 70 70
Total cocoa fat About 38.5 percent About 43.9 percent
Non-fat cocoa solids About 31.5 percent About 26.1 percent

Neither is wrong; added cocoa butter is one way a maker adjusts texture and melt. In a bar of only cacao and sugar, the sugar runs the other way: a 70 is about 30 percent sugar, an 85 about 15, a 100 none. The full treatment is in what the percentage on a chocolate bar means, and the related question of cocoa versus cacao, and what raw cacao claims amount to, has its own page.

The ingredient line

Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight, which makes the list the most informative line on a wrapper.

Kind of bar The ingredient line, in order What it tells a buyer
Two-ingredient bean-to-bar Cacao beans, cane sugar Made from the bean, nothing added
Bean-to-bar with butter Cacao beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter Made from the bean; the percentage includes the added butter
Remelted bar Dark chocolate, followed by its own sub-list of cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, lecithin, vanilla Points to a bar made from purchased chocolate
Supermarket dark Sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, milkfat, soy lecithin, vanillin Sugar is the largest single ingredient
Compound coating Sugar, palm kernel oil, cocoa powder, whey, lecithin Not chocolate under the American standard

A sub-list for the chocolate itself points to a bar made from purchased chocolate; its absence does not prove the reverse.

Milk that the label does not list

Anyone with a milk allergy should read dark chocolate labels with care. The FDA surveyed 94 dark chocolate products and found milk in bars that did not declare it; the agency notes that most dark chocolate is made on equipment also used for milk chocolate. Advisory statements such as may contain milk are voluntary, and the survey found milk at widely varying levels in products carrying them, and in some labeled dairy-free. The FDA's consumer advice is to contact the manufacturer.

Seals and stickers

Fairtrade sets a floor price for cocoa and adds a Fairtrade Premium paid to the producer organization. From October 2025 the floor in non-regulated origins, a category that excludes Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, rose to 3,500 dollars a tonne. The floor matters most when the market is low; when futures spike, as the piece on why cocoa is cheap and terrified at the same time explains, the market sits above it. Award stickers are competitions rather than standards; the pieces on the Great Taste awards and the sofi and Good Food Awards explain what each is worth.

A map of the shelf, and three tastings that teach it

The fastest way to learn craft chocolate is to change one variable at a time. Three pairs come close.

Same fermentary, different maker. The Dandelion Maya Mountain Belize 70 (shop Dandelion Maya Mountain Belize 70) and the Standout Maya Mountain Belize 70 (shop Standout Maya Mountain Belize 70) start from beans named for the same Belizean source. What differs is the maker, with its own roast and conche.

Same maker and origin, different sugar. Standout's Maya Mountain 100 beside its 70 shows how sugar changes a bar from the same source. The same test works with Fu Wan's Taiwan Ping Tung 70 and Ping Tung 100, bars made from Taiwanese cacao.

Same maker, different fermentary. Dandelion's Kokoa Kamili Tanzania 70 (shop Kokoa Kamili Tanzania 70) against its Costa Esmeraldas Ecuador 70 (shop Costa Esmeraldas Ecuador 70) holds the maker and the two-ingredient recipe steady, so the origin does most of the talking.

Amano's Ocumare 70 (shop Ocumare 70) names a single Venezuelan village. Luisa Abram's Rio Tocantins 70 (shop Rio Tocantins 70) is made from wild Brazilian cacao. Qantu's Oh la Vache 60 (shop Oh la Vache 60), which pairs Peruvian white cacao with Canadian milk, took overall gold at the International Chocolate Awards world finals in 2021. Goodnow Farms makes a single-origin white chocolate (shop single-origin white chocolate), which carries cocoa butter but no non-fat cocoa solids. For flavored bars, the Dick Taylor Black Fig (shop Dick Taylor Black Fig), the Fossa Sea Salt 70 (shop Fossa Sea Salt 70), the Naive Porcini dark milk (shop Naive Porcini dark milk) and the Cuna de Piedra Comalcalco 73 with reposado mezcal (shop Cuna de Piedra Comalcalco 73 with reposado mezcal) show the range of inclusions. For baking, Valrhona Guanaja 70 (shop Valrhona Guanaja 70) comes as fèves. Megan Giller's Bean-to-Bar Chocolate is the book-length companion to this page.

How to taste

Taste at room temperature, from lightest to darkest, with water between bars. Snap a square and listen: a clean snap comes from cocoa butter set in its stable, well-tempered form. Smell the broken edge. Then let the piece sit on the tongue for several seconds before chewing, and note how the flavor changes as it melts. Write one word for each change. Two bars side by side make differences easier to name than bars tasted one at a time. The beginner's guide to tasting single-origin chocolate sets out a full flight and a vocabulary.

Keeping chocolate

Temper, and why it matters for storage

Cocoa butter can crystallize in six forms, numbered I to VI. Tempering exists to make the fat set in Form V, which melts near body temperature, about 86 to 94°F, and gives chocolate its gloss, snap and stability. For dark chocolate the process is to melt fully, typically to around 122 to 140°F, cool to about 81 to 84°F, and rewarm to about 88 to 90°F. Warmth, or temperatures that swing, lets the crystals shift toward Form VI and the fat move to the surface.

Bloom is not spoilage

That movement is fat bloom: heat softens the cocoa butter, which separates and rises to leave gray or white streaks. Sugar bloom is different, a dusty, rough film left when surface sugar absorbs moisture and recrystallizes as the water evaporates, often after condensation. Both are safe to eat unless there are signs of spoilage such as an off smell or mold. A bloomed bar can still be melted into brownies, ganache or drinking chocolate (drinking chocolate guide), where the crystal structure no longer matters. Hot chocolate versus drinking chocolate sets out how that cup differs from one made with cocoa mix, and the bloom piece covers telling the two blooms apart.

Where to keep it, and for how long

Question Answer
Temperature 65 to 70°F
Humidity Below 50 to 55 percent relative humidity
Dark and semisweet At least two years for best quality
Milk chocolate About one year for best quality
White chocolate About six months for best quality
Freezer Up to a year, airtight
Refrigerator Avoid; chocolate absorbs odors

A sealed tin in a cool cupboard, away from the stove and the coffee, keeps to that table. If a kitchen is too hot and the freezer is the only option, wrap the chocolate airtight, thaw it still wrapped in the refrigerator for a day, bring it to room temperature, and only then unwrap it, so condensation forms on the wrapping rather than the chocolate. The times in the table are for best quality, not safety. The shelf-by-shelf pantry storage guide puts chocolate in context with everything else in the cupboard.

Chocolate and health, plainly

The heart. A Cochrane review of 35 trials with 1,804 mostly healthy participants found flavanol-rich cocoa lowered blood pressure by about 1.8 mmHg, small but statistically significant, over trials mostly two to twelve weeks long. The COSMOS trial then gave 21,442 older adults a cocoa extract of 500 mg flavanols a day for a median 3.6 years. Total cardiovascular events did not fall significantly, although cardiovascular deaths, a secondary outcome, were 27 percent lower. A bar is not a supplement, and the wrapper does not list flavanols. The evidence piece on dark chocolate and health grades each claim.

Lead and cadmium. Consumer Reports tested 28 dark chocolate bars and detected both metals in all of them. For 23, an ounce a day would exceed a level its experts consider potentially harmful for at least one metal. Cadmium comes up from the soil through the tree, and lead lands on beans as dust during sun-drying, so careful post-harvest handling matters. CR's advice is to treat dark chocolate as an occasional food, with children and pregnant people the groups most at risk.

Dogs. Chocolate contains theobromine and caffeine, and dogs clear theobromine slowly, with a half-life of 17.5 hours. The Merck Veterinary Manual lists cocoa powder and unsweetened baking chocolate as the most concentrated sources, dark and semisweet next, milk chocolate lower and white chocolate negligible. Mild signs appear at about 20 mg per kilogram of body weight, heart effects at 40 to 50 and seizures at 60 or more. A dog that gets into a dark bar needs a vet, and the tin belongs on a high shelf.

Where to find the bars

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver. Visitors can ask staff questions in the shop. Products ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com.

See also: Chocolate Bars.

For milk, dark milk and dark chocolate side by side, see dark milk vs milk chocolate.

Taiwan grows cacao too: Fu Wan Tie-Guan-Yin Tea Chocolate layers the prized oolong into a 62% bar made from Ping Tung cacao.

Sources & Further Reading

Back to blog

Shop this story

Shop this story (6)

More in Chocolate Bars

Browse all in Chocolate Bars