SMELLBOOK REFERENCE · SB-0019
Dark Chocolate
Permanent ID: smellbook: · updated 2026-10-06, revision 5
Character EDITORIAL
Dark chocolate smells deep, roasted and bitter, with a warm cocoa richness and sometimes earthy, fruity or nutty notes.
Words: roasted, bitter, dark, warm. Families: Temperature and texture, Sharp and bitter, Cooked and fermented.
States: roasted (EDITORIAL). A state says how an entry is met, such as wet, aged or roasted. It does not create a new smell, and it adds no scientific fact by itself: states marked EDITORIAL come from the entry's own records, and only those marked VERIFIED are reported by a VERIFIED claim.
Met in: Kitchen.
Evidence
Scientific evidence
- Odorants that distinguish dark chocolates (CLM-CHOCOLATE-001). Zoé Deuscher, Karine Gourrat, Marie Repoux, Renaud Boulanger, Hélène Labouré & Jean-Luc Le Quéré, Key Aroma Compounds of Dark Chocolates Differing in Organoleptic Properties: A GC-O Comparative Study, Molecules, 2020.
- Three odorants with a chocolate note in dark chocolate (CLM-CHOCOLATE-002). Christine Counet et al., Use of Gas Chromatography−Olfactometry To Identify Key Odorant Compounds in Dark Chocolate. Comparison of Samples before and after Conching, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2002.
Molecules named in these claims: 2-methylbutanal, 2-methylpropanal, 3-methylbutanal. A molecule listed here is named in a VERIFIED claim about this smell. It is not presented as the cause of the smell; each claim says what its source supports.
Cite
SmellBook. (2026). Dark Chocolate (revision 5, 2026-10-06). SmellBook Public Atlas. smellbook:smell:dark-chocolate. https://smellbook.com/smells/dark-chocolate
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