ArticleNature microbiology2025
A defined microbial community reproduces attributes of fine flavour chocolate fermentation.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Molecular Atlas of Key Food Odorants Reveals Mixture-Level Organization and Enables Generative Aroma Design.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Niche Construction: A Rational Engineering Strategy for Regulating Microbial Assembly to Enhance Flavor and Bioactivity of Fermented Foods.Comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety · 2026Review
- Predictable shifts in microbial species composition lead to community-wide robustness to environmental stress.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Towards "greener" strategies in quality control: rapid volatilomics of cocoa based on HS-GC-IMS and machine learning.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2026Article
- Beyond omics: From descriptive profiling to causal and scalable design of fermentation microbiomes.iMeta · 2026Article
- Revisiting the Role of Lactic Acid Bacteria in Cacao Fermentation: From Traditional Paradigm to Functional Precision.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- From "synthetic" to defined microbial communities for clearer terminology.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Water kefir as a paradigm for multi-omics and genome-scale metabolic modelling in fermented food.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Review
- Metagenomic Insights into the Microbial Composition and Functional Potential of Cocoa (Theobroma Cacao L.) During Fermentation and Drying in Colombia.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Microbial biotechnology meets ecological theory: a unified framework to design industrial microbial consortia.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2026Review
- Slower-growing species promote interspecific cooperation and coexistence under acid stress through cross-feeding.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Systematically exploring and evaluating core fungal composition and their flavor profile in fermented grains of Jiang-flavor baijiu.Food chemistry: X · 2025Article
- Microbial chocolatiers of fine flavour.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) bean fermentation is a spontaneous process involving interactions between abiotic and biotic factors that contribute to the final flavours of chocolate. Understanding these underlying interactions could enable desired flavour profiles to be reproduced under controlled conditions. Here, using bean fermentation samples from Colombian farms, we established that pH, temperature and microbiota composition, including both bacteria and fungi, influence key flavour attributes of premium chocolate. Genome-resolved metagenomics revealed that metabolic traits necessary for the development of the flavour profile of chocolate are redundantly present in the fermentation microbial community. Using a defined and metabolically competent microbial consortium, the feasibility of replicating fine flavour attributes of chocolate under controlled conditions was confirmed via omics, metabolic networks and a trained tasting panel. Our results provide the basis for the design of fermentation starters to robustly reproduce fine chocolate characteristics.
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