Cocoa nibs are the roasted, hulled and cracked fragments of the cacao seed (Theobroma cacao) — small, dark, brittle chips of pure cocoa with no added sugar. They are the direct precursor to all chocolate: grind them and their own fat liquefies into cocoa mass. Eaten as they are they are intensely bitter, roasty and faintly fruity, with a hard, coffee-like crunch, and cooks use them as a crackling, cacao-flavoured garnish rather than a sweet.