Certificate in Chocolate Tasting

Our ‘Chocolate Tasting Certificate’ courses are the core of our sensory chocolate curriculum. These courses will methodically take your through everything you need to know to gain a real appreciation of the world of craft chocolate bar tasting, from cacao varieties, genetics and production, through to chocolate making, recipes and origins.

Chocolate is one of the most complex foods we know. It’s flavour can be as sophisticated as wine or as nuanced as specialty coffee. Our structured learning approach will help you develop as a chocolate taster over time, whether you are a chocolate maker, an educator or communicator, a chocolate professional, enthusiast or if you just started your chocolate journey.

We’ve designed our core learning modules in structured levels, building from a short introduction to the subject to give you the basic tools, sensory practice and background knowledge for chocolate tasting into more advanced levels that take you deeper into the subject as you become more expert.

Our courses follow a vocational learning structure similar to wine or coffee courses and we use a standardised quality approach to ensure that you receive the highest quality of learning wherever you take our courses, while not forgetting the enjoyment and pleasure that comes from tasting great chocolate.

Programme structure

All our Chocolate Tasting modules (apart from the Introduction module) include assessments to confirm your understanding of the course material, with a pass required to receive your course certificate and to progress to the next level. The assessments include multiple choice exams and blind tasting tests from Level 2 onwards. Level 3 includes a short written answer exams, group project assessment and blind tasting tests.

If you’re just beginning your educational path with IICCT, we recommend that you start with the ‘Chocolate Tasting Certificate’ programme up to at least Level 2 before moving on to our other programmes.