Chocolates are one of the common cravings among people. Usually distributed during birthdays, it is a feast to the eyes, mouth and the soul. On most occasions, gifting a box of chocolate is very well welcomed. The earliest evidence of chocolate can be traced back to pre-Colombian cultures of Mesoamerica which is now known as Mexico. Aztecs, the indigenous people of Mesoamerica believed that the cocoa seeds were ’food of the gods’. In fact, the scientific name of the cocoa trees translates to “food of the gods”. The word ’Chocolate’ comes from the Aztec word ’Xocolatl’. According to the History Channel, the world’s first chocolate bar dates all the way back to 1847. It was created by Joseph Fry with the help of his son, and they made it with cocoa butter, cocoa powder, and sugar.
Chocolates have been around for quite a while now. Since humans have this incessant need to invent and innovate, we now have countless number of varieties of chocolates. Chocolates have over six hundred flavour compounds, which is three times the number of flavour compounds in red wine. We get chocolates mostly in two forms – solid and liquid. Furthermore, we have different kinds of chocolates. Broadly, they are categorized into white, milk and dark chocolates.
Apart from their popularity due to their taste, chocolates also have an assortment of benefits. From improving mental health to reducing risk of cardiovascular diseases, chocolates are beneficial to humans in many ways. While dark chocolates are considered to be the most nutritional, the other forms of chocolate bring their share of benefits to the table too. Overall, chocolates in limits are considered to be a part of a healthy, balanced diet.
All in all, we are very grateful to all those people who strives hard and continue to do so to fill the world with better chocolates each day.
Title
Our project is based primarily on chocolates and their ratings. We start at the ground level – the sourcing of the cocoa beans. The source of the cocoa beans determines the chocolate’s taste, quality and texture. Hence, we thought it would be fitting to name "Beans to Bar" as all chocolate bars are born from cocoa beans. The logo contains two key elements – the cocoa bean and the chocolate bar.
Project Statement
To understand the different ratings of chocolates, the various factors and the various ways in which these factors affect the chocolate ratings.
- Our data set is taken from a website called “Flavors of Cacao” http://flavorsofcacao.com/chocolate_database.html. This website is run by the Manhattan Chocolate Society.
- Manhattan Chocolate Society (MCS) are a group of people who meet for the sole purpose of tasting, comparing and discussing the qualities of fine chocolate. They are mainly concerned with craft chocolates. Craft chocolates are those that are made from whole cocoa beans from scratch by a company. MCS started functioning in the year 2007.
- Leaflet
- leaflet.extras
- ggplot2
- plotly
- shiny
- shinydashboard
- DT
- dplyr
- shinythemes
- We have used R shiny to develop a dashboard to explain our findings and insights.
- The HOME tab introduces the topic. It help you gain some insights on the various factors affecting chocolates.
- The FACT tab gives us a rough idea about the dataset. We have created few info boxes for the same. A bar chart is also plotted that shows the most reviewed ingredient. We have also created a bar plot to depict which is the top 5 ingredients used. The total number of ingredients that we have are 21 combinations.
- The MAP tab shows location Distribution Across Countries and also Average Rating of Bean Origin.
- The fourth tab is PLOTS. Various plots like Pie chart, Bar plots, Line chart are plotted.
Through the graphs seen in the dashboard, we can see:
- Which country is the number 1 contributor of Chocolate.
- Which rating scale has the highest count.
- Which year has the best reviews.
- Which is the most reviewed ingrident.
- What is the percentage of cocoa that most companies use.