We are looking to develop some artisan chocolate bars with more caffeine than usual, but we have problems with bitter taste.
At the moment there are some chocolate bars on the market with 100mg Caffeine in 43gr Chocolate, all of them manage to avoid caffeines bitterness and also the chocolate taste good. (Tipically Chocolate has 9mg of caffeine in 43 grs)
Does anyone know any product that can reduce or hide this bitterness.
We appreciate any ideas.
Salt is a known bitterness suppressor, and is often used for this purpose. Plus it goes well with chocolate. It's the only natural ingredient I can think of that will do this. There is of course a limit to its effectiveness, so I don't know if it would be enough to mitigate the issues you're dealing with. The only other natural ingredient I can think of is sugar. Sugar does not suppress bitterness per se, but it does fairly effectively mask it. Again, there are limits.
Of course you can always resort to chemical bitterness suppressors. I'm no food scientist, but I know that these are out there. I think I read somewhere that tannic acid can do this. And there are other products (such as Benecoat) that are made for this purpose. Before using these however you'll want to think about how important it is to you to have an all-natural product. Personally I think all-natural approaches are always preferable for high-end chocolate. But if you're getting the extra caffeine into the bar using chemicals then the ship has sailed on that anyway. And if your prospective customers are buying these bars mainly to get a jolt of caffeine then a case could be made that this approach would not be as much of a negative with that segment of the market.
Thank you for your reply Michael, I think the Benecoat mention is heading us in the right direction.
At the moment we are doing high end chocolates, but we reckon a Caffeinated (Functional) product, can open us a broad market since it isnt a similar product at this end. We are still trying and doing samples, hope I can find Benecoat from a local supplier.
Regards
