How to Taste Chocolate

Chocolate tasting has become as common a practice as wine tasting. Chocolate possesses almost identified 600 molecules whereas wine has 1500. Only 50 play a role in the flavour of chocolate and it’s identification.

As with wine, the flavours are linked to the history and transformation of the cocoa pod into cocoa and then chocolate. The beginnings of flavour form during the fermentation and drying of the cocoa pod.

Seven criteria are taken into account when tasting chocolate

• the colour, defects and brightness of the chocolate

• the breaking of the chocolate

• the odors

• the texture in the mouth

• the acidity, bitterness and sweetness of the taste

• the flavours in the mouth and the back of the nose

• the length of time in the mouth

Recommendations

• To preserve your chocolates, choose a hermetically sealed box, and keep it in a fresh and dry place. The ideal temperature of conservation is from 16 to 18°C.

• Do not put your chocolates at the refrigerator. However, if you must, you can place them at the bottom of a compartment. But, after taking them out, wait a few hours before tasting them.

• Always begin the tasting with bonbons with lower cocoa content and advance to those with a higher cocoa content.

• To accompany these wondeful moments, drink water. Water makes it possible to pass from one bonbon to another, letting all the flavours be expressed.

However with chocolates that are relatively strong, tea or a coffee could be pleasant companions, just as old alcohols, such Armagnac, cognac or rum, which give birth to an astonishing communion of flavours.