The American company Mycotechnology is developing a chocolate that will replace sugar with special mushrooms and reduce the bitterness of cocoa.
- The new mushroom chocolate from the company Mycotechnology, based in Colorado, is far from available on the market. Still in the laboratory testing stage, scientists are analyzing their fermentation technique with Reishi mushrooms on cocoa beans.
This method is supposed to reduce the bitterness and therefore the need to add sugar, explains Top Health . Will the chocolate bars be as good as they are? For the moment, impossible to know.
The Reishi mushroom fermentation method –
This is a kind of mushroom that consumes sugars, digests bitter compounds and removes the acidity of seeds – is called Mycosmooth. It was Dr. Brooks Kelly who developed it 30 years ago.
In 2013, before being applied to chocolate, Mycosmoothdemonstrated its talents on coffee beans. James Longan, director of production at MycoTechnology, explains that the Mycosmoothfermentation method is completely organic: “Rich in beta-glucans, molecules that stimulate the immune system, Reishi bring a beneficial effect to beans.”
Bio, light, good for health
The mushroom chocolate developed by an American company would have all the virtues, according to its manufacturers.
Chocolate is good, with mushrooms, it’s even better for health. At least that is the message that the American company Mycotechnology is trying to pass, which has developed a process of fermenting cocoa beans with a mushroom to make it less bitter and reduce sugar additions.
A year after applying its fermentation method to coffee beans, this biotech company, based in Denver, Colorado, announced Tuesday that it would expand its expertise to cocoa beans. “Thanks to this technique, we remove the bitterness and thus we reduce the need to add sugar,” says in an email to Figaro Alan Hahn, founder and director of MycoTechnology.
Two weeks of fermentation
The Process
The process, called Mycosmooth, was developed nearly 30 years ago by Dr. Brooks J. Kelly. Its principle is based on the fermentation of coffee beans or cocoa beans for 14 days with mushrooms called Reishi. This species, which can be found at the foot of some trees, consumes sugars, digests bitter compounds and removes the acidity of the seeds. Reishi have also been used for over two millennia in traditional Asian medicines. They are rich in beta glucans, molecules known to stimulate the immune system, and thus provide a “beneficial effect” to these grains, says its website MycoTechnology.
The Mycosmooth ™ process has been used since 2013 on coffee, available in some stores in the United States. The technique is “entirely organic,” according to production director James Longan. It also stands apart from other existing techniques that simply hide the bitterness, especially by the addition of sugar or other products, he says.
The innovative processing method should be applied to chocolate as early as next week. Alan Hahn says he is “ready to work with agribusiness companies selling chocolate bars or drinks”. It will therefore, a priori, wait several months before seeing this first light chocolate mushrooms in US supermarkets. There remains one last unknown weight: the taste of this unpublished greed. On its website, MycoTechnology remains discreet.
