- 4 days
- Mon - Thu, 7 - 10 Dec 2026
- 10:00am - 6:00pm
- Bangalore, Bangalore, India
- €995
Understand cacao from a flavor based approach and how flavor in cacao is the key to great chocolate
Elevate your understanding of fine chocolate and cacao with our Certificate in Cacao Flavor Evaluation course.
The Cacao Flavor Evaluation course applies the IICCT sensory approach and profiling system to give you a comprehensive view of the flavour potential of fine cacao, cacao production, cacao varieties, and common cacao defects.
The course will be taught in English. Training material will be provided in English.
Exams will be taken in English (please note that translation tools are not permitted during the exam). No discount is offered if you do not pass the course and retaking the exam will cost €100. Retakes can also be taken online with a surcharge to cover the cost of the shipment.
Lunch is included. Please let us know any dietary requirements or allergies.
Certificate course in Cacao Flavor Evaluation
Cacao Flavor Evaluation is a comprehensive sensory and technical course that will give you a deeper understanding of flavor in fine cacao and how the flavor potential of cacao can be unlocked in finished chocolate.
The course follows the IICCT principle that we can measure the quality of a chocolate by how much you enjoy its flavor. In Cacao Flavor Evaluation we take the same approach with cacao: good tasting cacao can make great chocolate; defective, bad cacao that you don’t want to eat, will not make good chocolate.
The Cacao Flavor Evaluation course will help you to develop the sensory skills needed to assess cacao quality through its flavor, the transformation of cacao flavor into finished chocolate and how cacao flavor relates to technical methods of evaluating cacao.
Sensory
Cacao Flavor Evaluation includes extensive tasting and evaluating of cacao, including:
- samples of recognised high quality cacao from a range of origins
- sampling different preparation protocols: dried cacao, nibs, sweetened liquor, lab chocolate
- roasting sets from dried beans, to light roasting and through to extreme high roasts
- exploring defects and problem through physical examples
- evaluating cacao using the IICCT system, focusing on good flavor and defects
- workthroughs from dried cacao to finished chocolate
- bean-by-bean tasting of different cacao origins to understand where the flavor comes from – do all the beans taste the same, or is your cacao a mix of genetics?
Technical
The sensory training is backed up with knowledge sessions focusing on:
- review of technical approaches to cacao evaluation and alternative approaches
- market sectors, facts and figures and fine flavor definitions
- realities of cacao farming and fermentation, the good and the bad
- cacao genetics, varieties and reproduction – what’s really happening at farm level?
- how cacao moved around the world and how this helps us to learn about flavor
The evaluations made during the course are made using the Institute’s electronic sensory evaluation method, which is based on an understanding of cacao flavour and quality that can be applied with any sample preparation protocol, including dried cacao, cacao liquor and sample or retail chocolate.
Our approach recognises that cacao is a crop grown to produce foods giving us hedonistic pleasure and an enjoyable eating experience. Technical industry knowledge can be useful for basic screening and quality control, but good chocolate needs a flavor profile that’s complex, distinctive and balanced and this requires an understand of flavor, from cacao to bar. If you want to understand great flavor in chocolate and where it comes from, this is the course for you.
Assessments
Certificates will be awarded on a pass of a multiple choice exam and tasting assessments.
- Training the senses to appreciate cacao flavour
- Sensory exploration, practice and the brain science of cacao tasting
- What is fine cacao and how we define it
- Tasting of example cacaos and sample protocols
- Origins and varieties of cacao and the history of cacao introductions
- Cacao production, quality and problems
- How cacao is processed and how this affects flavor?
- Tasting practice and profiling with our online system
- Understanding and tasting flaws and defects in cacao
- Cacao farming, economics and trading
- Take away study guides
- Certificate for exam passes
The course will help your development and flavour understanding for:
- established chocolate makers
- start-up chocolate makers
- chocolate tasters
- cacao trader or commercial grower
- cooperative technicians
- NGO staff members
- anyone with an interest in cacao flavor and quality
- anyone wanting to develop their sensory skills in a new area or learn more about cacao