What's White Chocolate?

Hello my fellow chocolate lovers,

I am Takanori Chiwata, the chocolate engineer of COCONAMA CHOCOLATE.

I’d like to answer the question “is white chocolate really a chocolate?” in this post.

We actually often get the question, “what is white chocolate?”

As you can all tell from its name , it is a chocolate. No question. Period.

What EXACTLY is it though? It has the same melt-in-your-mouth texture, but doesn’t taste like a chocolate at all...

Yep, I just gave it away. “Same texture but tastes different”, that’s the key.

The unique texture is created by the essence of chocolate’s meltiness : cacao butter.

It melts as soon as you take a bite, since cacao butter can melt at a temperature that’s a little bit lower than a body temperature.

White chocolate consists of cacao butter, so its texture is incomparable to any other kinds of chocolate.

As I mentioned, white chocolate consists mostly of cacao butter. It doesn’t contain cacao mass nor cacao powder, which gives chocolate its “flavour”.

Now, let me explain about cacao butter in detail.

Cacao butter is a compound found in cacao beans, and cacao beans consist of 50% cacao butter.

When you grind cacao beans and strain the cacao pureé, you end up with a powder and liquid form of cacao.

The liquid is the cacao butter and the powder is what we know as the cocoa powder.

The cocoa powder holds the chocolate like flavour, and the cacao butter doesn’t contain any chocolatey flavour or scent.

Inevitably, white chocolate which consists of cacao butter won’t have the “chocolate flavour” you expect all chocolate to have.

However, not having a chocolate-like flavour has its own perks. Since white chocolate doesn’t have a distinct flavour itself, it can serve as a base for flavoured chocolates. And the deliciousness of flavoured chocolates like matcha and strawberry goes without a question.

FYI, cocoa powder is the part which consists of health benefiting nutrients like polyphenol. Although they are all delicious, if you’re trying to eat healthy it’s probably the best if you stick with either milk or dark chocolate.

In our next post, I’d like to share the secret of chocolate’s melt-in-your-mouth texture. Look forward!

With hopes that you will be able to encounter the perfect chocolate just for you,

Takanori Chiwata