Learn About Chocolate

TASTE, TRANSPARENCY AND CRAFTSMANSHIP

Begin your fine chocolate journey

You can judge chocolate well by considering Taste, Transparency and Craftsmanship (TTC).

You can ask yourself, what is my taste experience? What do I know about the origin? What do I know about the people and companies who have been involved in growing the beans and then getting them from the pods on the trees to the maker’s door?

What do I know about where my chocolate was made, who made it and how it was made?

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TASTE

Let’s begin with the taste

To fully appreciate your chocolate, you need to slow things down and use all the senses we were given to understand our world. We call this sensorial tasting.

Tasting in this way soon becomes second nature, allowing you to sit back and enjoy the experience of all the senses playing in harmony together. You can use this for other foods too but it is particularly important for chocolate.

Tasting experiences

TASTE

Before you even put the chocolate in your mouth

Looking at your chocolate prepares you for the taste experience to come. Consider the shine, the shape of the mould and the colour. In fine chocolate, the aesthetics will be your first sensory pleasure.

Snap your chocolate, it should give a clean snap to show it is well-tempered and ready to release its full complement of flavours.

Smell your chocolate. The more you practise smelling chocolate, the more you will recognise the different aromas.

TASTE

Now you can taste your chocolate

Notice the feel of your chocolate.

The luxuriant melt and mouthfeel of chocolate is one of its unique pleasures and one we associate with industrially made chocolate, but you will soon learn to look beyond the pleasures of the mouthfeel and seek out the flavours and aromas as it melts in your mouth.

In the taste, we are looking for complexity and distinctiveness, a journey of flavours without the sweetness or bitterness overpowering the experience. Then notice the aftertaste and how long it lasts.

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TRANSPARENCY

Now for where you chocolate comes from

As a craft chocolate enthusiast, you will be just as passionate about the origins of your cocoa beans as wine connoisseurs are about their wine regions.

You will want to know where the beans have been. This is something that you are not often told with industrial chocolate. And it's not just knowing where the beans come from, it’s the type of beans they are.

Origin can be an indicator of the quality of the beans and a bar’s taste potential.

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TRANSPARENCY

Back to the farm

If we go back to the very beginning, the origin of cacao is now thought to be the Upper Amazon (in Peru and Bolivia). It was then transported over the Andes to the more coastal areas of Peru and Ecuador and then travelled north to Central America - the more familiar heartland of cacao culture.

As consumption grew, production headed east along the tropical belt being taken from its homeland to the colonies in the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.

A word on cacao genetics - it’s complicated! But you will soon begin to recognise the character of some of the main origins like Madagascar and Dominican Republic.

TRANSPARENCY

From farm to bar

Transparency is not just about the origin of the cocoa beans, it is about their journey from the farmer right through to the final bar.

This links into craftsmanship because there are key points in the process that contribute to the development of the final flavours you want to know where they were carried out and by who. Craft chocolate makers will want to tell you!

With a little knowledge of the realities of the cacao supply chain, you will be able to see through the marketing of a brand’s ‘ethics’ and work out if the maker is using fine flavour cacao to make their bars. The taste will confirm if the bar has indeed been made with fine cacao.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

And finally how your chocolate was made

Transparency is all about being able to identify the hands involved in the making of your chocolate and where that took place, craftsmanship refers to the skills they have used to craft the flavours at each point in the process.

If we go back to the Association of Craft Chocolate Makers definition, we want to know how the natural flavours of the cacao have been crafted from bean to bar.

Tasting experiences

CRAFTSMANSHIP

At origin

Craftsmanship begins at origin. This skill involved, and the choices made at every stage of the process contribute to the final tasting experience.

Everyone involved in the fine chocolate supply chain wants their cacao to deliver distinctive flavour profiles and the final chocolate to express the true character of the cacao in the chocolate.

At origin, this means the genetic varieties, the farming, the fermentation, the drying and transportation.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

In the factory

Flavour development then continues in the factory, with the roasting, grinding, adding of ingredients, conching, tempering and finally moulding.

With a little experience, you will be able to decide whether the flavours you are tasting have been manufactured from standard cocoa beans or crafted from fine-flavour beans.

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