Michel Cluizel - beyond price, is it all that

[dejaq]

We are also working with a distributor. he is located in VA, but they distribute out of NJ. for a 5kg box we paid 105.00 which comes out to about 9.55/pound.

the reps name is Henri Ettedgui and he may be reached at

henryettedgui@comcast.net

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Great tip, thanks.

At some point I might team up with some other NYC chocolate lunatics and split a 5kg box.

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do tell me how it's going to feel to bathe in it, that sounds decadent...

[paulraphael]

do tell me how it's going to feel to bathe in it, that sounds decadent...

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Ask Tammylc ... she has 88 lbs of it!

[Nathan Kurz]

I was massively surprised by it actually. 99%, you expect it to be unbearably bitter, almost inedible, but infact the finish and flavour is so pure and "chocolately".

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Everyone else probably knows this (including GTO), but until recently I was confused that the numbers given for these percentages didn't seem to add up. Then I learned that the percentages reported include the cocoa butter, not just the cocoa. Sometimes this is just the cocoa butter already occurring in the bean, and sometimes extra is added.

There's a linguistic confusion, at least in English, between the whole bean 'cacao' and the dry bitter powder 'cocoa'. In this case, the manufacturers are using 'cocoa' to refer to any product of the cacao bean including cocoa butter. For the Noir Infini (which I haven't had yet) it's the combined quantity of cocoa butter plus cocoa powder which totals 99%.

One site selling the Cluizel Noir Infini lists the cocoa butter percentage as 52% and cocoa solids at 47%. So while it certainly isn't a sweet bar, it doesn't necessarily have any more bitterness to it than some other brands 85% with less cocoa butter.

Hope this helps someone,

Nathan Kurz

nate@verse.com

[aguynamedrobert]

Actually a 52% cocoa butter content on that bar isn't really alarming. A natural cocoa bean in its regular form has rougly 50-55% cocoa butter already. So having a 99% bar with 52% cocoa butter would mean that probably not much cocoa butter had to be added...There probably was some added but not a ton.

Almost any bar that you see will have added cocoa butter to. There are some that won't and they will most likely be labeled but it is a common practice to add cocoa butter at any percentage level in chocolate...

Have a great day everyone,

[dejaq]

just an update folks we have had everything in house and ready to for acouple of weeks now,but our exec. Has been in south Florida getting our sister property up and running. As soon as he gets back and settled in we will make this happen since he also wants to partake in this.