Tannins require oxygen for proper evolution. This is the basis of chocolate-making, where it is called “conching.” That chocolate waterfall in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory really exists. Highly phenolic cocoa extract is pumped around and falls in sheets, exposing sufficient surface for continual O2 saturation, feeding the building of structural colloids through controlled, limited oxidative polymerization that absorbs tremendous quantities of oxygen. The result is dark chocolate, which is profoundly flavorful, its texture hard rather than harsh. If milk protein is then added, it
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