| Chocolate Tasting & Terminology |
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Chocolate is made by roasting beans, which are actually seeds from the cacao tree that are ground and processed into many chocolate products. Chocolate is usually mixed with sugar, vanilla, cocoa butter and spices or other flavor infusions.
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Tips for tasting chocolate:
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- Make your favorite coffee, pour favorite wine, or make your favorite hot cocoa. Everyone’s taste buds are different, so you will never truly agree on which is the best chocolate, which means it really doesn’t matter what you’re drinking, as long as it goes well with chocolate.
- Buy specific kinds of chocolate – dark, milk, nuts & chews, buttery mixtures, fruit, liquors – and create flights of chocolate from different manufacturers or brands.
- Each flight should have at least 4 kinds of a similar chocolate, so you can compare one chocolate to another.
- Keep your chocolate at room temperature for at least 2-3 hours before your tasting.
- Each taste of chocolate should be no more than a bite-size piece. If you buy a piece of chocolate from a candy store like Sees, cut each piece into fours.
- If you buy white chocolate, make this your last flight and bring out a bottle of champagne or dessert wine (yum). See our chocolate & wine pairings.
- Anyone can taste chocolate, but if you want to sound like an expert or connoisseur, here are some words and adjectives used to describe chocolate-tasting:
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Glossary
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| Alkalinization – used to describe the acid taste of cocoa. A technical term for adding alkali potash to cacao is called the “Dutch process” or “Dutching.” How acidic is your chocolate? |
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Aroma – the smell or scent of your chocolate denoting “inherent character”; sometimes referred to as chocolate “nose” or “bouquet”
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Attractive – chocolate that is uniform in size, color, sheen and texture
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Brut or bitter – an unpleasant, caustic taste usually found in cooking chocolate
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Body – a chocolate, which coats your mouth, having fullness and flavor
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Bold – can denote rich flavor
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Cacao – used to describe the cacao plant and the intensity of chocolate
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Chocolate liquor – commonly known as unsweetened chocolate, also referred to as cocoa liquor
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Cocoa butter – a complex hard fat made up mostly of triglycerides
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| Complex – a chocolate that has many flavors or smells |
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Common – a chocolate with no distinct flavor
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Compound coatings – Vegetable fat, whey powders and whey derivatives may replace cocoa butter and dairy blends.
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| Couverture – a term used to describe a chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa butter. The extra cocoa butter allows the chocolate to form a thinner coating than non-couverture chocolate |
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| Dark – Refers to the color of the chocolate and must contain 43% cacao. |
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Dry – brittle chocolate – does not melt well
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Earthy – can either mean flavor or body.
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| Flavor – an extension of character |
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Fondant – pure dark chocolate – opposite of milk chocolate
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Fruity – a description of some chocolate
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Full – a good combination of strength and color
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Ganache – a rich, silky chocolate mixture made by melting chocolate, or by combining chocolate with warm cream, resulting in a balance of smoothness of flavor and the intensity of the chocolate
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Milk chocolate – chocolate made by combining chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, milk or cream, sweeteners and flavorings
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Plain – chocolate that is lacking desirable characteristics
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Quality – describes the most desirable qualities
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| Raw – a bitter, unpleasant taste |
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Rich – flavorful chocolate
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Semi-sweet – a chocolate blended with sweeteners and cocoa butter
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Truffle – a chocolate made with a ganache, butter, sugar and, occasionally, liquor.
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White – not a real chocolate because it contains no cacao, but rather cocoa butter.
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