Fine Chocolate

[John DePaula]

I have 5# of Amano Madagascar and am afraid of not doing anything wonderful enough for it.  I used a little of it in a ganache with no added flavors, just wanting the flavor of the chocolate to speak for itself.  Anyone have a good idea of what I should do with it?  It pays to live within an hour of Amano

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Why not try a water ganache.

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That's a great suggestion! Funny thing, I just had some of this today - wonderful!

[prairiegirl]

I use Amano chocolate strickly for chocolate tastings. I always let my audience know that I consider Amano to be among if not THEE top chocolate maker. I mold the chocolate into 5 gram bars. I am in the process of planning a retail outlet and will be thrilled to carry the bars.

[emmalish]

Resurrecting this thread because I had to vent about this somewhere.

One of my coworkers brought in a box of Thomas Haas chocolates the other day (see this thread here for more info). It was a small box, but enough that each of us would get one to try.

Okay, I admit I'm a bit of a chocolate snob. When I try something new, I'll take a tiny bite and savour it, and have a look at what the filling is like, and then I'll take more tiny bites and make it last.

There were a few of us who oohed and aahed and enjoyed them greatly. For the most part, people didn't get what was so great about them, but made the appropriate yummy noises. A few people, however, just grabbed one at random, popped it whole in their mouth, and then shrugged and said something to the effect of "I don't know what the big deal is – for the same amount of money we could have gotten a huge box of chocolate bars".

*sigh*

I should also mention that one of the guys who was all "meh" about it says his favourite place to buy pastries is Starbucks.

I have another friend who always tells me she's the world's biggest chocoholic. But she'd rather get a big bag of bulk chocolate truffles from the grocery store than a small box of high end artisan chocolates. I could probably understand if it were just because of the cost issues, but she says she honestly can't taste the difference.

Okay. End rant. I just needed to share with people who would understand. It just bothered me to see it so under-appreciated.

[haresfur]

Aldis had several varieties of "Single Origin Dark Chocolate" - a concept I hadn't seen before. The brand is "Choceur" (shouldn't that be "Chocoeur"?) and is made in Austria. I picked bars of Madagascar and Ecuador to compare.

The Madagascar chocolate is described on the package, "Our premium dark chocolate is produced from cacao beans sourced exclusively from Madagascar to create and indulgent, luxurious chocolate. The flavours are unadulterated and exude fine characteristics of strong fruity flavours with hints of citrus and berries." It has 65% cacao.

The Ecuador pack says "... The high cacao content produces a robust and complex dark chocolate full of spice and red berry flavours." It has 75% cacao.

So the difference in content makes it kind of hard to compare, but I suppose they chose the recipe based on the supposed strengths of each region's product. The Ecuador did seem "earthier" to me, not just stronger, but I wouldn't say I have an educated palate.

So anyone else encountered this concept? Does terroir matter for chocolate or was it just an extremely clever way to get me to buy 2 bars (and probably go back for more varieties in the interest of research )?

[nakji]

I've seen single-origin chocolate in various places, most memorably in Japan, where a popular brand, Meiji, made boxes of individual squares and bars in single origin. As I recall, there was Venezuelan bitter squares, and Costa Rica and Madagascar bars. I tried the Venezuelan and the Madagascar, and both tasted distinctly different, although I can't attribute it to terroir, really based on how much I know about chocolate. I'd love to hear what someone who has done some reading on the topic has to say.

[nickrey]

If you want to taste the difference that can be seen in a single terroir chocolate, check out Chuao chocolate by Amedei.

There is an article here about the chocolate and its makers. It makes for interesting reading.