Learning paths
Nine routes through the site, each in an order that builds. Every stage gives you something to read, something to do, a tool where one helps, and a question to check yourself against.
What these are
A path puts existing pages in order and adds a practical task and a checkpoint to each stage. There are no new lessons here and nothing is assessed. Finishing a path earns nothing but what you have learned, and ChocolateHQ awards no qualification of any kind.
Some tasks involve heat, and some stages touch on food you might sell. Where that matters, the stage links to the page that covers it.
Chocolate basics
- For
- Anyone who eats chocolate and wants to know what they are buying.
- Does not cover
- How to make or work with chocolate. That is the home-making and chocolatier paths.
Stage 1. What chocolate is
Tell cacao, cocoa and chocolate apart, and know what the three main types contain.
- Read
- Do
- Take three bars from a shop shelf, one dark, one milk, one white, and read only the ingredient lists. Note the first ingredient of each.
- Tool
- Label decoder
- Checkpoint
- Why is white chocolate legally chocolate when it contains no cocoa mass?
Stage 2. What the percentage means
Read a cocoa percentage for what it says and what it leaves out.
- Read
- Do
- Find two bars with the same stated percentage and compare their sugar per 100 g on the nutrition panel.
- Tool
- Percentage calculator
- Checkpoint
- Two 70% bars can differ in sugar. What else is in the 70%?
Stage 3. From tree to bar
Know the steps between a pod and a bar, in order.
- Read
- Do
- Write the steps from memory, then check them against the page. Mark the two you think change flavour most.
- Checkpoint
- Which step makes raw cocoa safe to eat, and which later step does not?
Stage 4. Buying and keeping it
Choose a bar on purpose and store it so it lasts.
- Read
- Do
- Decide where in your home chocolate should live, and why not the fridge door.
- Tool
- Storage advisor
- Checkpoint
- What is the white film on old chocolate, and is it harmful?
Learn to taste chocolate
- For
- People who want to describe what they taste, and compare bars fairly.
- Does not cover
- Which chocolate is best. Tasting here is about describing, not ranking.
Stage 1. A method
Taste the same way every time, so differences come from the chocolate.
- Read
- Do
- Taste one bar slowly, twice, a day apart, writing notes each time without looking at the first set. Compare them.
- Tool
- Tasting scorecard
- Checkpoint
- Why let chocolate melt and not chew it?
Stage 2. The words
Separate taste, aroma, mouth-feel and texture, and name each.
- Read
- Do
- Taste a very dark bar and decide, for the drying sensation on your tongue, whether it is bitterness or astringency.
- Checkpoint
- Which of the vocabulary's terms rest on a measurement, and which on convention?
Stage 3. Tasting blind
Remove what you know from what you taste.
- Read
- Do
- Run a blind flight of three or four bars with someone else setting it up. Score before the reveal.
- Tool
- Tasting flight
- Checkpoint
- How large a difference in score counts as a difference at all?
Stage 4. Where flavour comes from
Connect what you taste to what was done to the cocoa.
- Read
- Do
- Pick one note you found in a bar and trace it to the step most likely responsible.
- Checkpoint
- Why does this site decline to say what a country's cocoa tastes like?
Working with chocolate at home
- For
- Home cooks who want to melt, temper, mould and fill chocolate reliably.
- Does not cover
- Selling what you make. That brings food safety, allergen and labelling law, covered in the professional path.
Stage 1. Melting without spoiling it
Melt chocolate so that it neither seizes nor scorches.
- Read
- Do
- Melt 200 g by two methods and note which gave you more control.
- Checkpoint
- Why does one drop of water ruin melted chocolate when a lot of cream does not?
Stage 2. Tempering
Get a snap and a gloss on purpose.
- Read
- Do
- Temper by seeding, test a smear on paper, and only then use it. Repeat until three tests in a row set glossy.
- Checkpoint
- What are you actually making more of when you temper?
Stage 3. Moulding and dipping
Make bars and coated pieces that release cleanly.
- Read
- Do
- Mould six bars. For any that stick or mark, find the cause before blaming the mould.
- Tool
- Troubleshooter
- Checkpoint
- What does contraction have to do with release?
Stage 4. Ganache and fillings
Make a ganache that holds, and know how long it keeps.
- Read
- Do
- Make one ganache at two ratios and compare texture after a night. Keep filled chocolates cool and eat them soon.
- Tool
- Ganache calculator
- Checkpoint
- Why does a filled chocolate keep for less time than a plain bar?
Bean-to-bar foundations
- For
- People starting to make chocolate from cocoa beans.
- Does not cover
- A business plan, or a validated safety process. Published laboratory figures do not transfer to your roaster.
Stage 1. Beans
Judge beans before you buy them.
- Read
- Do
- Do a cut test on fifty beans from one lot and record how many are slaty, mouldy or flat.
- Checkpoint
- What does a slaty bean tell you about how the lot was handled?
Stage 2. Roasting, and why it is also a safety step
Roast for flavour knowing what else roasting has to do.
- Read
- Do
- Roast one lot three ways, keep everything else the same, and taste the three liquors blind.
- Tool
- Tasting flight
- Checkpoint
- Why can nothing after the roaster be relied on to kill Salmonella?
Stage 3. Cracking, winnowing and grinding
Get shell out and particle size down.
- Read
- Do
- Weigh beans in and nibs out, and work out your shell loss as a percentage.
- Checkpoint
- Which contaminants concentrate in the shell, and why does that make winnowing matter?
Stage 4. Formulating
Design a recipe and know what it declares.
- Read
- Do
- Write a two-ingredient and a four-ingredient dark recipe and compare their declared cocoa percentage and fat.
- Tool
- Formulation calculator
- Checkpoint
- Why does the calculator give a range until you enter your supplier's figures?
Stage 5. Conching, tempering and costing
Finish a batch and know what it cost.
- Read
- Do
- Cost one batch honestly, including your own time and the bars you had to remelt.
- Tool
- Batch cost calculator
- Checkpoint
- What is the difference between margin and markup?
Professional chocolatier foundations
- For
- People moving from making chocolates for themselves to making them for sale.
- Does not cover
- Your own country's food law in detail, and any registration it requires. This path shows what to ask, not what your regulator will accept.
Stage 1. Consistency
Make the same thing twice.
- Read
- Do
- Make the same moulded chocolate on three different days and record room temperature, humidity and any defect.
- Tool
- Scaling calculator
- Checkpoint
- Which of your defects followed the room and not your method?
Stage 2. Shelf life
Know what limits how long each of your products keeps.
- Read
- Do
- List your products and, for each, the factor most likely to end its life first.
- Checkpoint
- Why can no table tell you the date to print on your own product?
Stage 3. Allergens and labels
Know what must be declared and what a warning does and does not do.
- Read
- Do
- Write the allergen declaration for one product, then list every other allergen that passes through your kitchen.
- Checkpoint
- Is a “may contain” statement required by law where you sell?
Stage 4. Hygiene
Understand why chocolate work is kept dry.
- Read
- Do
- Walk through your process and mark every point after which nothing is heated again.
- Checkpoint
- Why is a negative test on a finished batch weak evidence of safety?
Stage 5. Packaging and price
Pack for the product and price for the business.
- Read
- Do
- Price one box from its costs upward, then compare with what you were charging.
- Tool
- Batch cost calculator
- Checkpoint
- What may you call a wrapper that is recyclable only where facilities exist?
Chocolate science
- For
- Students and the curious who want the measurements behind the rules.
- Does not cover
- A textbook treatment. These are the studies the site has read, with their limits.
Stage 1. Fat and crystals
Understand cocoa butter's crystal forms and why they matter.
- Read
- Do
- Leave one tempered and one untempered piece at room temperature for a week and describe both.
- Checkpoint
- What changed in the piece that bloomed?
Stage 2. Flow
Know what makes melted chocolate thick or thin.
- Read
- Do
- Explain, to someone else, why two chocolates of the same fineness and fat can flow differently.
- Checkpoint
- Why does the spread of particle sizes matter and not only the largest?
Stage 3. Flavour chemistry
Follow flavour from fermentation to roast.
- Read
- Do
- Pick one study from the fermentation page and write, in two sentences, what it does not establish.
- Checkpoint
- Does roasting create new aroma compounds or change the amounts of existing ones?
Stage 4. Reading evidence
Tell a trial from an observation, and an extract from a chocolate bar.
- Read
- Do
- Take one health headline about chocolate and find what was actually tested, at what dose, for how long.
- Checkpoint
- What did the largest cocoa trial find on its main outcome?
Cacao agriculture
- For
- People who want to understand the crop: students, buyers, and anyone visiting a farm.
- Does not cover
- Agronomic advice for a particular farm. Recommendations depend on soil, climate and variety.
Stage 1. The tree
Know how a cacao tree grows, flowers and fruits.
- Read
- Do
- Sketch the tree's year: flowering, pod growth and harvest, for one producing country.
- Checkpoint
- Why does a tree set fruit from so few of its flowers?
Stage 2. Varieties and genetics
Replace the three-variety story with what the genetics shows.
- Read
- Do
- Look up three clone names and note the group each was placed in.
- Checkpoint
- What became of Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario?
Stage 3. Farming and shade
Understand how cocoa is farmed and what shade does and does not do.
- Read
- Do
- List the studies that found a yield cost from shade and those that did not, and what differed between them.
- Checkpoint
- Does shade protect cocoa from drought?
Stage 4. Threats
Know which diseases are where, and why planting material is quarantined.
- Read
- Do
- For one continent, name the major threat it has and the one it does not.
- Checkpoint
- Why is there no map on the threat atlas?
Stage 5. Harvest and post-harvest
Follow the bean from pod to sack.
- Read
- Do
- Explain what goes wrong if beans are bagged above 8% moisture.
- Checkpoint
- What do fermentation and drying each contribute, and what can drying undo?
Chocolate economics
- For
- Readers who want to know where the money in a chocolate bar goes, and where its price comes from.
- Does not cover
- Forecasts, and anything about trading. Company shares and market sizes are also absent, for want of open sources.
Stage 1. Who grows it and who buys it
Know the shape of world production and trade.
- Read
- Do
- Find the four largest producers and the share they hold together.
- Checkpoint
- Why do two official counts of world production disagree?
Stage 2. The price
Understand what the world price is and how it has moved.
- Read
- Do
- Compare the 1977 and 2024 peaks in constant dollars.
- Checkpoint
- What cocoa, exactly, does a futures price refer to?
Stage 3. What reaches the farmer
Follow the price to the farm gate.
- Read
- Do
- Separate, for one country, the price announced, the price guaranteed and what was measured.
- Checkpoint
- What share of cocoa households reached a living income in the largest analysis read?
Stage 4. Trade rules
See how tariffs and supply-chain law shape where cocoa is processed.
- Read
- Do
- Read off the duty on beans and on chocolate for one market and say which it favours importing.
- Checkpoint
- Why does the tariff table not show what a Ghanaian exporter pays?
Stage 5. What people eat
Read consumption figures without being misled.
- Read
- Do
- Find one country's chocolate consumption measured three ways and explain the gap.
- Checkpoint
- Which of the four quantities is behind most league tables?
Chocolate sustainability
- For
- Buyers, students and people in the trade who want evidence and not slogans.
- Does not cover
- A recommendation of which chocolate to buy. The evidence does not support one.
Stage 1. The problems
Know what the sector's problems are and how they connect.
- Read
- Do
- Draw the links you can find between income, child labour and forest loss.
- Checkpoint
- What is the difference between child labour and children's work?
Stage 2. Promise against outcome
Separate what is promised from what was measured.
- Read
- Do
- Take one claim from a wrapper and place it in the right column: promise, implementation or measured outcome.
- Checkpoint
- What did the systematic review find certification did to household income?
Stage 3. Forests and climate
Know what satellites and models show.
- Read
- Do
- Find what the sources that mention 2050 actually say about cocoa.
- Checkpoint
- Is a suitability projection a forecast of harvests?
Stage 4. Law
Know which laws now bear on cocoa and what each asks.
- Read
- Do
- List the three European instruments and the question each asks of a seller.
- Checkpoint
- Which of the three names cocoa?
Stage 5. Packaging and the rest of the footprint
Put packaging in proportion.
- Read
- Do
- Rank ingredients, manufacture, packaging and transport by their share of a bar's footprint, then check.
- Checkpoint
- What are the four different things “recyclable” can mean?
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