30 Best Books on Chocolate (That Are Not Recipes) to Become An Expert
The book industry offers plenty of material for mouthwatering recipes, step-by-step guides to decadent desserts, famous chocolatiers sharing their secrets, and tips & tricks to amuse the sweet tooth of your guests. But what about books that actually EDUCATE US on the basics of all things cacao and chocolate outside of the kitchen?
From the science, history, sociology and health of chocolate, to chocolate tasting and travelling, all the way to autobiographies, market analysis and the most romantic fiction book on chocolate, here is a comprehensive list of the 30 best books on chocolate (that are not recipes, and divided in categories) that you have been looking for!
To be gifted, shared, or enjoyed in solitude. The choice is yours. Just remember that all these books are best appreciated with a cup of hot chocolate or a piece of chocolate by your side.
My personal library of books entirely dedicated to chocolate education.
(All the summaries are copied and pasted directly from Amazon)
CHOCOLATE TASTING AND EDUCATION
These books help you understand the basics of how chocolate is made, how to shop for chocolate, what craft bean-to-bar chocolate is and most importantly how to enjoy chocolate at home and pair it with your favorite other foods and drinks.
Bean-To-Bar Chocolate
Author: Megan Giller
SUMMARY: Author Megan Giller invites fellow chocoholics on a fascinating journey through America’s craft chocolate revolution. You’ll get a taste for the chocolate-making process and understand how chocolate’s flavor depends on where the cacao was grown. Learn what to look for in a craft chocolate bar and how to successfully pair chocolate with coffee, beer, spirits, cheese, or bread.
Publishing Year: 2017
Number of Pages: 231
CHOCOLATE
Author: Dom Ramsey
SUMMARY: Unwrap the secrets of chocolate and learn everything from cacao's origins to how to make chocolate at home. Trace the journey of chocolate across the globe, from cacao plants in Cameroon and Costa Rica, to how to make, buy, taste, and cook with this delicious treat.
Publishing Year: 2016
Number of Pages: 224
The Chocolate Connoisseur
Author: Chloe Doutre-roussel
SUMMARY: A chocolate lover's guide celebrates the world's finest confectioneries as it explains how to tell the difference between good and bad chocolate, introduces new brands of gourmet chocolate to be savored, offers a connoisseur's tips on how to taste chocolate, and presents an entertaining history, lore, myths, and recipes.
Publishing Year: 2006
Number of Pages: 216
Discover Chocolate
Author: Clay Gordon
SUMMARY: A connoisseur's guide to acquiring and consuming the world's best chocolates is a lavishly illustrated reference that provides information on cocoa-growing regions, makes recommendations for pairing chocolate with wine, and addresses the latest claims about the health benefits of chocolate.
Publishing Year: 2007
Number of Pages: 160
The Chocolate Tasting Kit
Author: Eagranie Yuh
SUMMARY: The best (and most fun) way to learn about chocolate is by eating it, and this interactive kit provides curious gourmands and budding chocoholics with all the tools they need to become cacao experts. The booklet includes information on buying and tasting chocolate plus tips on hosting a tasting party. Twelve flavor profile cards help tasters put their thoughts into words while the notepads give them a place to write it all down.
Publishing Year: 2014
Number of Pages: 48
Deep Tasting
Author: R. M. Peluso
SUMMARY: You don’t have to take on another religion or a new set of beliefs. If you like chocolate, all you need is five minutes or less—the time it takes for a piece of chocolate to melt in your mouth—to see how easy it can be to learn to meditate. Even if your goal isn’t to meditate, the tasting techniques in this book will awaken your senses to the aromas and flavors of the world’s finest chocolate.
Publishing Year: 2016
Number of Pages: 150
CHOCOLATE HISTORY
From the Mayan and Aztec spiritual rituals involving cacao, to the rich chocolate drinks served at European courts, all the way to the crucial chocolate innovations during the Industrial Revolution, these books cover all the most important events in chocolate history.
The True History Of Chocolate
Author: Michael and Sophie Coe
SUMMARY: The book begins 3,000 years ago in the Mexican jungles and goes on to draw on aspects of archaeology, botany and socio-economics. Used as currency and traded by the Aztecs, chocolate arrived in Europe via the conquistadors, and was soon a favourite drink with aristocrats. By the 19th century and industrialization, chocolate became a food for the masses – until its revival in our own time as a luxury item.
Publishing Year: 1996 (revised and updated in 2019)
Number of Pages: 280
Chocolate Wars
Author: Deborah Cadbury
SUMMARY: Chocolate was always a global business, and in the global competitors, especially the Swiss and the Americans Hershey and Mars, the Quaker capitalists met their match. The ensuing chocolate wars would culminate in a multi-billion-dollar showdown pitting Quaker tradition against the cutthroat tactics of a corporate behemoth. Featuring a cast of savvy entrepreneurs, brilliant eccentrics, and resourceful visionaries, Chocolate Wars is a delicious history of the fierce, 150-year business rivalry for one of the world's most coveted markets.
Publishing Year: 2011
Number of Pages: 384
The New Taste of Chocolate
Author: Maricel E. Presilla
SUMMARY: This definitive illustrated reference has been revised and expanded to immerse chocolate lovers in the rich history and science of the cacao bean. Celebrated author, scholar, and chocolate expert Maricel E. Presilla introduces us to the broad array of cacao cultivars, meticulously covering the latest research, then explores the art of cacao farming and the people who dedicate their lives to cultivating the precious cacao pods.
Publishing Year: 2009
Number of Pages: 256
Chocolate: A Global History
Author: Sarah Moss and Alexander Badenoch
SUMMARY: Moss and Badenoch recount the history of chocolate, which from ancient times has been associated with sexuality, sin, blood and sacrifice. The first Spanish accounts claim that the Aztecs and Mayans used chocolate as a substitute for blood in sacrificial rituals and as a currency to replace gold. In 1753, Linnaeus gave the cocoa tree the official classification Theobroma cacao, or the food of the gods. In the eighteenth century, chocolate became regarded as an aphrodisiac the first step on the road to today's boxes of Valentine delights. "Chocolate" also looks at the production of chocolate, from artisanal chocolatiers to the brands such as Hershey's, Lindt and Cadbury that dominate our supermarket shelves, and explores its associations with slavery and globalization.
Publishing Year: 2009
Number of Pages: 136
CHOCOLATE SCIENCE
Nerdy, detailed and in-depth, these books about the science of cacao and chocolate will stimulate the chocoholic minds looking for complicated topics to untangle.
The Chocolate Tree
Author: Allen M. Young
SUMMARY: Cultivated for over 1,000 years in Latin America and the starting point for millions of tons of chocolate annually consumed worldwide, cacao beans have been used for beverages, as currency, and for regional trade. After the Spanish brought the delectable secret of the cacao tree back to Europe in the late 16th century, its seeds created and fed an insatiable worldwide appetite for chocolate. The Chocolate Tree chronicles the natural and cultural history of Theobroma cacao and explores its ecological niche. Tracing cacao’s journey out of the rain forest, into pre-Columbian gardens, and then onto plantations adjacent to rain forests, Young describes the production of this essential crop, the environmental price of Europeanized cultivation, and ways that current reclamation efforts for New World rain forests can improve the natural ecology of the cacao tree.
Publishing Year: 2007
Number of Pages: 218
The Secret Life of Chocolate
Author: Marcos Patchett
SUMMARY: The book delves into the ancient history of the human relationship with the cocoa bean tree, Theobroma cacao, dissects the pharmacological properties of chocolate to the fullest possible extent, and divulges the mythical and magical associations of human interactions with this incredible plant.
Publishing Year: 2020
Number of Pages: 708
Chocolate Science and Technology
Author: Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa
SUMMARY: The topics cover modern cocoa cultivation and production practices with special attention on cocoa bean composition, genotypic variations in the bean, post-harvest pre-treatments, fermentation and drying processes, and the biochemical basis of these operations. The scientific principles behind industrial chocolate manufacture are outlined with detailed explanations of the various stages of chocolate manufacturing including mixing, refining, conching and tempering. Other topics covered include the chemistry of flavour formation and development during cocoa processing and chocolate manufacture; volatile flavour compounds and their characteristics and identification; sensory descriptions and character; and flavour release and perception in chocolate.
Publishing Year: 2016
Number of Pages: 507
CHOCOLATE MAKING
Looking for practical instructions to make chocolate from scratch at home? Want to become a professional chocolate maker but have no idea where to begin? These books about chocolate making will take you by the hand and lead you through every step of the bean-to-bar process from seed to packaging.
Making Chocolate
Author: Dandelion Chocolate
SUMMARY: From nationally-lauded San Francisco chocolate maker, Dandelion Chocolate, comes the first ever complete guide to making chocolate from scratch. From the simplest techniques and technology—like hair dryers to rolling pins—to the science and mechanics of making chocolate from bean to bar, Making Chocolate holds everything the founders and makers behind San Francisco’s beloved chocolate factory have learned since the day they first cracked open a cocoa bean.
Publishing Year: 2017
Number of Pages: 368
The Art and Craft of Chocolate
Author: Nathan Hodge
SUMMARY: The co-founder and head chocolate maker of Raaka Chocolate, Nathan Hodge, then shows you how to hack the basic principles of chocolate-making at home using tools as simple as a food processor, a hair dryer, and a double boiler. In addition, he offers recipes for traditional moles from different regions of Mexico; traditional Mayan chocolate drinks; cocoa as a meat rub; and various baked goods.
Publishing Year: 2018
Number of Pages: 160
Industrial Chocolate Manufacture and Use
Author: Stephen T. Beckett
SUMMARY: Since the publication of the first edition of Industrial Chocolate Manufacture and Use in 1988, it has become the leading technical book for the industry.
From the beginning it was recognized that the complexity of the chocolate industry means that no single person can be an expert in every aspect of it. Each new edition is a mixture of updates, rewrites and new topics. In this book the new subjects include artisan or craft scale production, compound chocolates and sensory.
This book is an essential purchase for all those involved in the manufacture, use and sale of chocolate containing products,
Publishing Year: 1988 (revised in 2017)
Number of Pages: 760
The Science of Chocolate
Author: Stephen T. Beckett
SUMMARY: The Science of Chocolate leads the reader to an understanding of the complete chocolate making process and includes the ways in which basic science plays a vital role in its manufacture, testing and consumption. Originally based upon a talk to encourage school children to study science, the book is now widely used within industry and academia.
Publishing Year: 2000 (revised in 2018)
Number of Pages: 284
CHOCOLATE SOCIOLOGY
Chocolate is only the finished product of a long supply chain whose players aren’t always treated fairly. The following books reveal the dark side of chocolate between slavery, exploitation, poverty and injustice in cocoa producing countries.
Cocoa
Author: Kristy Leissle
SUMMARY: Leissle reveals how cocoa, which brings pleasure and wealth to relatively few, depends upon an extensive global trade system that exploits the labor of five million growers, as well as countless other workers and vulnerable groups. The reality of this dramatic inequity, she explains, is often masked by the social, cultural, emotional, and economic values humans have placed upon cocoa from its earliest cultivation in Mesoamerica to the present day. Tracing the cocoa value chain from farms in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, through to chocolate factories in Europe and North America, Leissle shows how cocoa has been used as a political tool to wield power over others.
Publishing Year: 2017
Number of Pages: 228
Chocolate Nations
Author: Orla Ryan
SUMMARY: This vivid and gripping exploration of the reasons behind farmer poverty includes the human stories of the producers and traders at the heart of the West African industry. Orla Ryan shows that only a tiny fraction of the cash we pay for a chocolate bar actually makes it back to the farmers, and sheds light on what Fair Trade really means on the ground.
Publishing Year: 2012
Number of Pages: 182
Bitter Chocolate
Author: Carol Off
SUMMARY: Bitter Chocolate is both an absorbing social history and a passionate investigation into an industry that has institutionalized abuse as it indulges our whims. In the Ivory Coast, the world’s leading producer of cocoa beans, profits from the multibillion-dollar chocolate industry fuel bloody civil war and widespread corruption. Faced with pressure from a crushing “cocoa cartel” demanding more beans for less money, poor farmers have turned to the cheapest labor pool possible: thousands of indentured children who pick the beans but have never themselves known the taste of chocolate.
Publishing Year: 2014
Number of Pages: 336
Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light
Author: Mort Rosenblum
SUMMARY: In this scintillating narrative, acclaimed foodie Mort Rosenblum delves into the complex world of chocolate. From the mole poblano--chile-laced chicken with chocolate--of ancient Mexico to the contemporary French chocolatiers who produce the palets d'or--bite-sized, gold-flecked bricks of dark chocolate--to the vast empires of Hershey, Godiva, and Valrhona, Rosenblum follows the chocolate trail the world over. He visits cacao plantations, meets with growers, buyers, makers, and tasters, and investigates the dark side of the chocolate trade as well as the enduring appeal of its product.
Publishing Year: 2005
Number of Pages: 304
CHOCOLATE HEALTH
Let’s admit it: we don’t exactly eat chocolate for its health benefits. But what if chocolate was actually good for us? Take a dive deep into the health benefits of chocolate with the books below that present scientific papers, experiments and long-term studies.
Chocolate, Healthfood of the Gods
Author: Phillip Minton
SUMMARY: The ultimate guide to the most delicious superfood, offering the most complete overview of chocolate's health-giving properties and how the reader can use chocolate to lose weight, improve blood pressure, limit the risk of heart attack, stroke and dementia. Healthfood of the Gods details the lore, legend, and medical truths now known to science, as seen from the perspective of a physician, revealing how and why pure chocolate is wholesome and healthy. It reviews the many and often surprising health benefits of eating chocolate. It augments the facts with references to the scientific research for each major topic.
Publishing Year: 2011
Number of Pages: 392
Chocolate and Health
Author: Rodolfo Paoletti and others
SUMMARY: After an introductory discussion of the historical background of chocolate, careful attention is devoted to those technological developments designed to improve the health-giving qualities of chocolate and biochemical and clinical trials of cocoa and its components. Various health impacts of cocoa and chocolate are thoroughly evaluated, including acute vascular effects and effects on blood pressure, blood lipids, and platelets. Psychological drivers of chocolate consumption and craving are also considered. Readers will find this book to be a rich source of essential information on cocoa and chocolate, their purported health-giving qualities, and the advances that are being made in this area.
Publishing Year: 2011
Number of Pages: 153
CHOCOLATE TRAVELS
When chocoholics travel the world, they want to know exactly where to find local brands, unique treats and unforgettable chocolate experiences. Therefore grab the guides below and get ready for departure!
From Bean to Bar: A Chocolate Lover’s Guide to Britain
Author: Andrew Baker
SUMMARY: Chocolate arouses greater passion in its fans than any other food, and chocolate-making is one of the most exciting and dynamic areas in Britain’s burgeoning artisan food scene. This book is a celebration of chocolate-making, designed to locate and bring to a wider audience the fascinating people making good chocolate in the right way. Arranged geographically in a dozen regional chapters, each one is centered on a local hero but also casts light on other chocolatiers and bean-to-bar makers in their area. A profile of the area and its most characterful artisans is backed up in each chapter by a locator map and data on transport links, supplier websites, and other foodie points of interest.
Publishing Year: 2019
Number of Pages: 272
Global Chocolate Tour
Author: Lonely Planet
SUMMARY: Inside this delicious guide to chocolate tasting across six continents, you'll discover everything from where to get Germany's best black forest cake to unmissable hot chocolate hotspots, revealing where to go and what to try, as well as finding out about the history, production and science of chocolate making. Packed with 150 of the world's best chocolate experiences across six continents, this globetrotting guide features master chocolatiers, artisan producers, exotic cocoa plantations, must-visit shops and lots more, as well as photos from all around the globe.
Publishing Year: 2020
Number of Pages: 256
OTHERS IN CHOCOLATE
Autobiographies, chocolate market analysis, cacao adventures and a little bit of romanticism. Discover the perfect mix of chocolate and emotions in the following books!
Bread, Wine, Chocolate
Author: Simran Sethi
SUMMARY: Sethi draws on interviews with scientists, farmers, chefs, vintners, beer brewers, coffee roasters and others with firsthand knowledge of our food to reveal the multiple and interconnected reasons for this loss, and its consequences for our health, traditions, and culture. She travels to Ethiopian coffee forests, British yeast culture labs, and Ecuadoran cocoa plantations collecting fascinating stories that will inspire readers to eat more consciously and purposefully, better understand familiar and new foods, and learn what it takes to save the tastes that connect us with the world around us.
Publishing Year: 2017
Number of Pages: 350
Raising the Bar
Author: Pam Williams and Jim Eber
SUMMARY: In the spirit of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, Raising the Bar: The Future of Fine Chocolate tells the story of what that next movement in the fine flavor chocolate symphony might hold. Told in four lively parts covering everything from before the bean to after the bar-genetics, farming, manufacturing, and bonbons-the book features interviews with dozens of international stakeholders across the fine flavor industry to consider the promises and pitfalls ahead. It looks through what is happening today to understand where things are going, while unwrapping the possibilities for the millions and millions of us who believe that life without the very best chocolate is no life at all.
Publishing Year: 2012
Number of Pages: 300
Meaningful Work
Author: Shawn Askinosie
SUMMARY: Askinosie Chocolate is a small-batch, award winning chocolate company widely considered to be a vanguard in the industry. In this inspiring guide to discovering a vocation that feeds your heart and soul, Askinosie describes his quest to discover more meaningful work – a search that led him to volunteering in the palliative care wing of a hospital, to a Trappist monastery where he became inspired by the monks focus on “being” rather than “doing,” and eventually traipsing through jungles across the globe in search of excellent cocoa bean farmers to make award winning chocolate.
Publishing Year: 2017
Number of Pages: 224
In Search of the Lost Cocoa
Author: Gianluca Franzoni
SUMMARY: The secrets of the chocolate world are finally revealed, by retracing the unique adventure of Gianluca Franzoni, founder of Domori, a company specializing in the processing of high quality chocolate. Always searching for the perfect flavor, Franzoni has spent years in South America trying to retrieve a variety of cacao, Criollo, abandoned by large multinational companies because it is unproductive and unprofitable, but perfect for creating chocolate with exceptional organoleptic characteristics. His research is intertwined with the history of cocoa, traced from its origin to the present day. The book outlines the stages that lead from the cocoa bean to the chocolate bar and provides all enthusiasts with the information they need to recognize a quality product and taste it taking in the flavours and fragrances.
Publishing Date: 2012
Number of Pages: 192
Chocolat
Author: Joanne Harris
SUMMARY: When the beautiful and mysterious Vianne moves to Lansquenet and opens a chocolate shop across from the church, the inhabitants of the tiny village find themselves torn between the solemn law of religion and the joyful rewards of Vianne's confections.
Publishing Date: 2001
Number of Pages: 320