I'm excited to see so many choc lovers in this forum. I'm somewhat of a chocolate surveyor, (other passion is durian surveyor), and i'm happy to share my findings of chocoalte brands.

First thing to understand about chocolate is that bitterness in chocolate is not desirable. Chocolate comes from cocoa, which is a tropical fruit (just like coffee berries). A good chocolate must be made from quality beans. The best beans that are produced are not sold in the commodity market, and they have to be booked or sold via contract. So only the reputable chocolate makers will buy them because of the higher price per tonne.

Good cocoa bean is like fine wine, it can be complex, it has character and flavours that are multi-faceted. So the chocolate maker's objective is to retain and bring out as much as possible the bean's complexity and flavours. This is done by careful processing, especially roasting, as over-roasting will produce a bitter chocolate.

To achieve bitterness, it is easy and cheap to do, start with a lousy bean (or broken beans with twigs, leaves, etc) and then over-roast at high temperature. Done.

A good test before buying any chocolate is to ask this question: where is your bean origin. If they say something like Belgium, Swiss, French, then they are clueless, as none of these countries grow cocoa. The more premium chocolates (one in Royce's offering, several in Lindt, most in Amedei, just an example) are single origin. Meaning all the beans come from one region, and I don't consider a country a reagion.

Also a higher % doesn't mean better quality. It just means more cocoa and less sugar. A 75% choc means 25% sugar (roughly, after subtracting vanilla and emulsifing agent, if any.) Read the ingredient list too, if the first ingredient is sugar, put it back on the shelf, because ingredient list is sorted by most first.

Difference between choc maker and chocolatier: Chocolate makers will acquire beans, clean, roast, winnow (deshell), mill / grind, blend, conch in the process to make chocolate. Chocolatiers most likely acquire chocolate and process into confections, by melting, tempering, flavoring, making ganache, etc.

Let me qualify why I've stated that I don't consider a country a region that constitutes a single origin. That is because of the diversity found in any growing country, to the point that it is not beneficiallly descriptive to the consumer. Imagine buying a wine that is "Wine of France" rather than the expected regional labels ie "Rhone, Asace, Loire" ... The reason that "wine of france" is not acceptable is the same reason we should not stop at country origins ie "Ghana / Madagascar / Cote d'ivoire" for bean origin and insist on more specifics. Why? Because this is an indication (one of many) that the chocolate makers who source their beans cares (or not) about what happens at the plantation level where they source their beans. It is a much harder argument to make that the choc maker cares if the beans are acceptable from any growers in the country rather then specific ones.

Oh, and yes, we should have a chocolate tasting tour.

The Ciollo, forestero and trinitario differenciation mirrors arabica, robusta, liberica.. somewhat... Just to qualify, I've made it a point to visit the plantations in central america, africa and asia, spent a couple weeks in costa rica few months back to visit various planations and the regional CATIE headquarters. http://www.catie.ac.cr/en/products-and-ser...ocoa-collection

Those categories (criollo, etc) are now superceded with some 25+ and counting dna groups. The situation is not as clean cut as wine varietals, as it is common for a single plantation to have up to 20 clone types. These clones are identified by unromantic names like CR15, BR01 etc.. Situation is the same in malaysia, I have visited two of the cocoa board HQ and they are giving out multiple clonal material to farmers, KKM25/22, PCB123 etc. In the past there could have been more cocoa hybrids as farmers were not trained on grafting. But it is safe to say that most productive farms, especially new farms now are relying on clones (much like durian), not hybrids. Assuming by hybrid you were not referring to Trinitario.

This means that the general grouping of criollo F and T is still useful in discussing in general terms the traits related with these groups, but not necessary relatable at the plantation level.

Speaking in these general terms, it is worth pointing out that the Forestero was bred out of the Criollo, and the generalization is that it was bred for larger bean size, yield, cocoa butter, desease resistance, self-polinating traits, adaptability to lower altitudes, etc, and not so much for flavanoids. In truth, the same mindset is being perpetuated here and now, where breeders are prioritizing for these quantitative traits over qualitative ones.

Hi there, don't think I'll call those specialty chocolates, I could be wrong...
What other chocolates have you tried?

Would anyone else here be interested in a chocolate tasting session to taste and evaluate different chocolates from around the world?

haha, if I"m honest with myself, I enjoy ideally 75-85. Sometimes I love chocolate as low as 65 but
only if the origin and aroma is amazing. But if I'm honest with myself, the 99% or 95% is just not pleasurable
to me at all. I would taste it but I won't buy it for enjoyment.

Do you seriously find the 99% pleasurable? There are other ways to reap the benefit of cocoa without having
to eat a 99% bar, which is to incorporate cocoa nibs into your diet, you can use it as a topping in your
yoghurt, or put it in your cereal, muesli, coockies, nut mix, and vege juice (<- that's what i do).

This post has been edited by nebulaguava: Jan 1 2015, 08:11 AM

IC. Thanks for sharing. You might be interested to know that Bitterness is a trait that is very easy for a chocolate maker to achieve, regardless of the quality of the bean,
by over-roasting the cocoa beans. Overly black chocolate, therefore is a sign of that. Sure, some people like kopi-o kao, and some look for artisan roast. To each their own.

If I had presented to you with some other specialty chocolates, i wonder if you might like the more flavor-intense chocolate over the bitter-only one.

Nice, do you read/speak german? The tasting literature I find useful are mostly wine education (in studying for the courts of masters sommalier certification), Gulp (Mary Roach) and Clay Gordon's book on chocolates. I run tastings almost weekly, had one before christmas at BSC, impromptu, at the wine section. I think coffee would go nicely for a casual session, at one of the specialty brew cafes.

Hey I'm organizing some chocolate education and tasting with Berjaya Hospitality school at the end of this month 28,29th. Having a guest speaker discuss origins, processes, and chocolate tasting and pairing. Interested to join? I have limited invitations.

I know how you feel about pricey food... being frugal is definitely a virtue in life haha. Having said that, I prefer quality over quantity, even on things that are free.

I skip most food not because of the financial cost but for their cost on health, being in the food line, we are faced with food 24/7. this morning I had a cheese cake tasting,
cold cheese cake in the morning, just imagine, some were made with raspberries, omg. Usually I will just spit it out but today I let myself induge because I love cheese and a good
cheesecake is hard to come by. I don't even drink the wines served during weddings, they are just empty calories, I don't buy candy-type chocolates off the shelves, which means I save quite a bit from not buying all these things like potato chips, candy, sweets, chewing gum, bad wine, bad coffee, bad tea. Then once in a while I buy a really good chocolate, really good tea, really good wine. and I prefer to pay for that one glass of wine (in calories and in RM) then 20 glasses of wine that I won't even remember after 10 minutes. Forgive the rambling.

OK will PM you the details once the invitation is out. Cheers.

Pleasure. I'm with you on the mouthfeel. and Felchlin is technically sound -- texture, particle size, finish, flavor profile, it is all there. I'm hoping to do a cross tasting some day perhaps with Valrhona thrown into the mix. Cheers.