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How to taste chocolate?

By L NITIN CHORDIA on September 20, 2017

Learn the complex art of fine tasting chocolate

“Until before I attended the chocolate appreciation/tasting session I did not understand the difference between sugar and chocolate craving. Now I know the attributes of a fine chocolate and can easily differentiate when I need chocolate and when I need sugar!” This is the most common feedback we receive at the end of my chocolate appreciation/tasting sessions from an audience who has been reaching out to commercial chocolates in a supermarket each time their bodies required sugar. It is indeed the craving for sugar that attracts people towards chocolates most times. And who does not like a bit of chocolate flavour while satisfying a sugar craving? Chocolates being accessible on a supermarket isle (compared to an Indian sweet) and pocketable lends itself well too. This is how the demand of industrial chocolates continue to rise. Piggy backing on a completely different human need! Economically, no chocolate company would complain. This is more about being at the right place at the right time!

Given that the sugar filled industrial chocolates satisfy a different craving, there is no real differentiator within the many industrial chocolates except that they can add artificial flavours, make it milkier or make it sweeter. Now, coming to the art of appreciating chocolates, the “real” or the pure ones, it is important to understand firstly, the difference between an industrial/mass produced chocolates and small batch produced pure chocolate. In a small batch produced pure chocolate:

• Every step of making chocolate (starting from roasting cocoa beans) is done by the chocolate maker

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