Status Updates From Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The...

Ecuador’s heritage cacao, Nacionale, is also called Arriba (“up”) because it comes from the upper basin of the Guayas River.
In the 1920s, 70% of Ecuador’s cacao was wiped out by frosty pod & witch’s broom. Agronomist Omero Castro created CCN-51 in 1965 from collections from Trinidad & Peru. He died tragically in a car accident in 1988 B4 he could patent CCN-51, leading it to be planted w/ little oversight.

Big (chocolate) companies aren’t interested in exploring diversity of taste because (big) brands demand consistency, and consumers don’t want to pay a lot for a bag of M&Ms.
“Nothing changes until people are willing to pay more for a unique flavor experience.” IF customers demand it, then companies will start to provide it.

French wine researchers at the University of Bordeaux found that students (in the wine program!) described a red-tinted white wine with the same descriptors as real red wine, and then described the same untinted white wine differently.
People also rate the same wine as tasting better when it has a posh label or is presented as being expensive. Taste perception is the result of many cues, not just flavor molecules.