Tasting Chocolates

Today was my first day of chocolates class, we found out today that we do not have to compile a professional portfolio for this class, but since I like having the information I will try my best to keep up to date here with making sense of all my notes. It just means that I have a little more flexibility to have fun with my writing and observations which will be nice.

For the first day of class we had a lot of lecture and video watching on chocolates, how it is processed, what it is made up of, and who some of the big players in the chocolates field were. Then we did a blind tasting of different kind of chocolates and had to write about the differences between them. Since all of these are chocolates that you can easily find at your grocery store, I thought it would be helpful to write my observations down. The method for tasting chocolate is actually quite similar to tasting wine. Before eating or smelling, you want to put the chocolate in a little container and shake it up to release the oils slightly, this will increase the smell sensation.

Pate a Glacier: This is a coating chocolate that is made out of cocoa powder and palm kernal oil. Palm kernal oil is a CBE that is supposed to mimic cocoa butter. Pate a Glacier does not actually have any cocoa butter in it. It had a flat taste of sugar, vanilla and left a thick filmy coating on your moth after eating it.


Roasted Cocoa Nibs: Had a nutty smell, darker deeper taste, bitter, acidic, harsh first impression.


White Chocolate: Had a overpowering dairy taste with a sugary finish. Taste like fat (not buttery fat but similar without the richness), tastes milky, a hint of vanilla with a sugary finish. Flat taste, dose not linger except for a filmy residue.


Milk Chocolate: Dulled smell with an initial diary taste that was similar to the Pate a Glacier. Tasted non-desrcript, a little caramel finish that was pulled from the roasted milky sugary taste.


58% (semi-sweet): Smelled bitterness, earthiness, stronger smell then the previous chocolate grades. Tastes harsher, more bitter, sweet finish, longer finish.


64% (bitter-sweet): The smell was almost identical to the semi-sweet. Tasted more melty, more fruit hues (raisins, currents), complex tones in this flavour hides the bitterness slightly. Coating and finish are both longer then in previous grades.


Les Grand Cru Chocolates
64% Manjari: This chocolate is made out of criollo bean. Shorter smell, but tastes strong. Rich fruity notes almost like cherries, bitter finish. Very flavourful and complex.


70% Guanaja: This had a strong earthy smell to it. More bitter taste, taste takes longer to grow and build up in your mouth but leaves you with a crisp smokey, fruity taste.