04/28/2014
HOW TO TASTE CHOCOLATE: From VALRHONA Chocolate.
The Art of Tasting
Chocolate is enjoyed. Grand Chocolat is experienced.
Tasting Grand Chocolat is an art, perfected by the leading chocolate craftsmen for creating, evaluating and sampling exceptional chocolates.
Tasting Grand Chocolat is a rare, intense, and intimate experience. You have to take your time and concentrate to discover the complexity of the chocolate and appreciate the enjoyment as it reaches a crescendo. You can see its shine, feel its texture, hear its crunch but only when it is in the mouth does the experience truly begin.
The Art of Tasting can be broken down into three stages, all of which are necessary for experiencing
the richness and complexity of a Grand Chocolat, as well as for revealing its aromatic potential.
Sight: First of all, look at the chocolate. Concentrate carefully on the polish, the shine, and especially the color. Colors can range from milky beiges, to pure mahoganies, to deep dark browns. It is an essential detail that reveals the varieties of cocoa beans used.
Smell: Next, smell the chocolate, breathe deeply and fill your mind and body with its aromas.
Hearing: Listen by breaking a square into fragments between your fingers, and listen to the snap it makes.
Taste: Start by biting into a quarter of a chocolate square, let it melt on the tongue to taste the initial flavors, aromas and consistency. Gently rub the tongue against the palate. This causes the temperature of the chocolate to slowly increase, resulting in the final release of its flavors and aromas. Close your eyes and focus only on the development of the aromatic notes of the chocolate in the mouth.
At the precise moment when the chocolate melts in the mouth and the aromas are released, breathe gently through the nose, then inhale to fully experience the diversity and the complexity of the flowery, fruity or spicy, etc., notes.
Breath out to create suction in the mouth, like a whistling effect, causing all the aromas from the chocolate that has been worked by the tongue and the palate to come together and move up towards the nose. Take a moment to concentrate on your tongue, to feel, to savor the different flavors: acid, then if you wait a little longer you may experience the bitterness.
Taste again, but this time concentrate on your nose, and discover the aromas that unleash themselves one after the other.
Similar to wine, you will first smell the most volatile aromas (primary or head aromas): These are instantaneous, fleeting flower or fruit aromas, which volatilize quickly and fade away in the middle of the tasting process.
Next, we move on to the aromas that are unveiled in the middle of the tasting experience, known as body aromas.These are essentially hot aromas, such as roasted almonds, hot bread crust, spice mix, etc. Allow yourself to linger over the taste experience, for you will then be able to savor the less volatile aromas of certain chocolates, known as final aromas: These are often woody, roasted nibs (cocoa nibs), malty, etc.
