From bean to bar, chocolate casts its spell
The tropical island province of Hainan has joined the ranks of celebrated places of origin for chocolate. Pierre Marcolini, a world-class master chocolatier, played a big role in this transformation by debuting Grand Cru Hainan chocolates at his online flagship shops in June.
“This is a fantastic Grand Cru,” he said. “I feel a slight bitterness, very pleasant, without astringency, with notes of citrus, grapefruit. It is extraordinary.”
The Belgian chocolate maker spoke via video about his latest bean-to-bar products made with beans grown in Hainan, a place he learned about by chance. Grand Cru, meaning great growth in French, was originally a classifier for fine wines.
Marcolini, always on the hunt for new resources in his frequent and far-reaching travels, learned about the island in 2017 in the International Journal of Food Properties, a magazine published in the United States.
It said Chinese scientists had developed a new variety of cacao in Hainan, a place already known for tropical fruits and economically important plants such as black pepper, vanilla, coffee, pandan, jackfruit, breadfruit, mango, litchi and wax apple. Cacao is the plant that produces seeds from which cocoa and chocolate are made. The seeds are often called cocoa beans.
Late in 2020, 1,100 pounds of cocoa beans were shipped to Brussels, the world’s premier city for chocolate, from the Xinglong area of Wanning on the eastern coast of Hainan. The humid island environment, which includes vibrant biodiversity,
imparted special qualities to the cocoa beans, including fine quality and special textures and flavors. This captivated Marcolini, who asked his representatives in China to look into the bean.
“This is the first time China exported locally produced cocoa beans,” said Qin Xiaowei, deputy director of the Spice and Beverage Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, and lead author of the article that introduced Hainan to Marcolini.
“The deal showed that the world has recognized our cocoa quality and production standards,” Qin said.
After learning that Hainan is building the world’s largest free trade port and has provided tax breaks on imports of raw materials and production equipment to encourage investment, Marcolini said he looked forward to visiting Hainan cacao plantations in person and getting to know the local culture, and may consider opening a duty-free shop selling chocolates made with Hainan’s quality cocoa beans, according to local reports.
Mark Huestch, a descendent of an eminent family known for its chocolate business in the U.S., said he was also impressed by the superb quality of the local beans during a recent tour to inspect the planting and fermentation process in Hainan.
“Hainan cocoa beans have a very unique flavor, with strong red fruit and nut flavors,” Huestch said, adding that he would recommend his chocolate products made with Hainan beans to U.S. consumers.
Hainan’s cacao growing can be traced to the 1950s, when returned overseas Chinese brought in seeds and grew them in Hainan.
Over the past 60 years researchers at the Spice and Beverage Research Institute have established a nursery for 500 varieties of cacao, making China an important base for the protection, evaluation and innovative utilization of cacao germplasm resources. Twentyone new varieties have been developed through systematic breeding and artificial hybridization, boasting high yields, fat content and cold tolerance. The technology and standards for growing cacao in China have reached advanced levels, the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences said.
“The annual yield of Reyin No 4, China’s first cacao variety with independent intellectual property rights, has reached 1,600 kg per hectare (1,428 pounds per acre), 3.5 times higher than the world average. It has a unique flavor, fine quality and is rich in polyphenols,” said Li Fupeng, director of the Cocoa Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences. Polyphenols are compounds that can have health benefits.
With the special features and quality of Hainan cocoa beans gaining more recognition, more domestic and foreign companies are looking to do business with the island province, said Liao Zirong, director of the Hainan Tropical Agriculture International Technology Transfer Center of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences.
The Spice and Beverage Research Institute has reached agreements with international organizations and institutions such as the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center, the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, and Ghent University of Belgium to boost future collaboration and exchanges in scientific and technological innovation, talent training, technical upgrades and brand development, Qin said.