What's The Highest Percent Of Dark Chocolate You Can Buy, And Does 100% Dark Chocolate Exist?

With all the different types of chocolate we can be grateful for in this world, there is none more decadent or elevated than dark chocolate. It has more nuance and depth than your regular sweet treat, bringing an intense experience of flavor to each bite — something rarely found in other types of chocolate. Much to this point, there's a whole selection of the best wines to pair with dark chocolate, not to mention the fancy cheese you should eat with it. What makes dark chocolate so special, though, is the percentage of cocoa that it contains — often disclosed in large numbers on the very front of the package, since it's commonly used as a selling point. But have you ever wondered what's the highest cocoa percentage you can find in a chocolate bar? The answer is a full 100%.

Yes, 100% dark chocolate does exist. It's made entirely from cocoa beans, without any sugar or artificial sweeteners. Occasionally, some minor flavorings might be added, but they must remain at less than 1%. The taste of 100% chocolate is naturally bitter, that's quite obvious — but this bitterness is just one flavor note. More complex and layered flavors can be tasted as well, though they depend on where the cocoa beans were sourced from and how they were roasted. In that respect, dark chocolate is similar to coffee. Lindt's 100% dark chocolate, for example, carries the aromatic undertones of walnuts, citrus, and berries — a much richer profile than just plain bitterness.

The process of making 100% chocolate begins with cocoa beans, the seeds of the cacao plant. The beans have to be fermented and roasted, after which they can be turned into baking chocolate, eating chocolate, or cocoa powder. As long as the ingredients in the chocolate only come from cocoa bean products, the chocolate will qualify as 100%. Some 100% chocolates are made exclusively from grinding cocoa beans into a paste and melting it, while others also contain cocoa butter (extracted from pressed beans) for flavor and texture purposes. Either way, the final chocolate only contains cocoa bean products and is therefore 100% cocoa.

It's fair to say that this type of dark chocolate isn't as commonly seen on the store shelves as its lower-percentage counterparts. One reason might be the bitter flavor, which is admittedly a pretty niche preference. Another reason could be the higher price tag — chocolates with a higher percentage of cocoa tend to cost more, especially in the era of record chocolate inflation. You'll mostly find 100% dark chocolate at special craft chocolate shops, but certain well-known grocery store dark chocolate brands have also taken their spin on it, such as the Ghirardelli Premium 100% Cacao Unsweetened Chocolate Baking Bar and Alter Eco Pure Dark Cocoa.