Dark chocolate tasting, for two.

[cathyr19355]

One of the presents I gave esrblog for Christmas this past year was Trader Joe's Chocolate Palette--a cube consisting of ten diffrent bars of chocolate, each at about 70% cacao concentration, each made from beans grown in a different region. My thought is that we would have our own chocolate tasting, and see whether the result enhanced our knowledge about the product of different regional beans.

This afternoon, we finally had the chance to do the tasting. We sat down armed with seltzer water and Carr's water crackers (for palate cleansing), ziplock bags (for storing the uneaten remains), pens and paper (for recording our observations).

I was disappointed. Most of the bars seemed to be at best indifferently processed, excessively gummy, grainy, or muddy in texture, and disappointingly like each other. On the other hand, we were able to ferret out some differences. esrblog claimed that the Sao Thome specimen, though badly processed, tasted distinctively like other chocolate he's had from beans grown in that region, though I could not distinguish such differences. My favorite was the specimen from Peru--which was one of the most interesting (and, perhaps significantly, the only 60% bar in the pack). He liked the Sao Thome (which I thought was pretty good as well) and the specimen from Papua New Guinea (ditto). Both of us detested the 73% bar from Tanzania, which was bitter and reminiscent of supermarket baking chocolate.

Now I'd like to try the same type of experiment with better quality brands from the various regions. *That* would be interesting.

Comments

chocolate

[(Anonymous)]

nice dark chocolate story about your expierence
mass produced dark chocolate can be much different

Re: chocolate

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

In light of our taste test, I can readily believe that.

[(Anonymous)]

We had a chocolate-tasting party a while back. Interesting experience.

Dagoba is a good chocolate, in my opinion, and has varietals as well as some interestingly-flavored bars. You can find them online if not locally; I think they sell a varietal sampler.

Scharffen-Berger is also a very good chocolate; others use it to make their chocolates and truffles.

- Robyn

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I didn't care for Dagoba's 70%, but that may just be me.

I have seen varietal packs at my favorite gourmet stores made by several different well-known companies. One of these days, I may bring one home for esrblog and I to test, or use it as the foundation of a convention testing party.

I like Scharffen-Berger well-enough; tammylc included it in a chocolate-tasting she ran at a recent con I attended.

Thanks for your comments, Robyn! I hope to see you at Penguicon, or Sword Camp, or something, this year!