A couple of months ago when I did the Choqoa story on the Pecha Kucha event in Genk, an enthusiast professor of the KHLIM (Niels Hendriks) approached me, he was working on classes about communication and multimedia design. Eventually he pitched the idea of using Choqoa as a marketing case project for his students to work on. Give them a briefing, challenge them with specific questions and have them unleash their creativity on it for 3 months. That did happen, this week. And the coming 3 monts. It’s amazing how things go in life.

Here is the presentation I gave to kickoff the Choqoa project last Monday in Maastricht. It introduces how I got this chocolate passion, how it became an obsession and where the passion became a mission. Explores things I’m doing with it, what tools I use so far etc. It’s a lot visual, get in touch for info if you want too. The last slides contain the actual questions the international C-MD group will work on. It seemed these students where very enthusiast, while I was driving back they already wrote on the Choqoa Facebook page, and I got some new Twitter followers. Way to go!

Staying true to that idea, and the whole Choqoa philosophy, I want to share it with anyone. If it inspires you, let me know. Make Choqoa your playground too, but don’t forget to rediscover chocolate as well!

PS: and thank you Steven, it reminds me (again) of your encouraging blogpost

Related Stories:

1. One month of Choqoa.com
2. Zaabär Chocolate and Facebook Marketing

Meanwhile, Marcolini get’s the website upgrade his passion deserves. Brussels interactive agency Emakina recently launched the new www.marcolini.com and sure did a great job here. Be sure to watch the Carre² Chocolat video where the Master Chocolatier himselve talkes passionately about the various pleasures and obstacles of single origin cacao, working together with plantations, and launching this particular collection.

Related Stories:

1. Tasting Battle: Amedei Chuao, Porcelana vs. Valrhona & Marcolini
2. The Chocolate Secret of Ferran Adrià
3. Spreading the Passion

(via BoingBoing)

Related Stories:

1. Cacao Chemistry. Films by TCHO pt.2
2. Chocolate Origins. Films from TCHO
3. My first Wine & Chocolate pairing experience

I’m open to be your delivery boy and bar dealer, for those interested in trying some of the origin chocolate that I’ve been blogging about since last month. For two friends I’m already working out a kind of “Original Introduction Sampler”, a set of 4-6 bars that may cost you like somewhere between 20-30 €.
I presume that on the 12.000m² you sure have some shopping corners. I will select some ‘accessible’ bars and a few more ‘challenging’ ones, reflecting what I learned in other tastings I had in the past weeks. You will also get some tips on best tasting practices from me, In return I challenge you to definitely share with me what you did (not) appreciate in the various bars!

Please let me know if you are interested in getting your “Original Introduction Sampler” before tomorrow evening. Mail me through my Facebook profile, or use the contact form or email me on :> choqoa {at} gmail dot com.

I’m warmheartedly looking forward to get your orders!

Related Stories:

1. Last call for your orders: 2009 Salon du Chocolat, Paris
2. Getting ready for the 2010 “Salon du Chocolat” in Paris!
3. The Salon du Chocolat 2010, a first report from Paris.

At present the site is gaining visitors from all continents, which very nice to spot and also the main reason for me to blog in English. In the map below you see where visitors come from and I indicated for fun the growing zone of cacao, which is about 20° up and down the equator. See for yourself:

Next to direct traffic and already some interesting Google search results, I also get a good amount of visits through my Cacao Aficionado photos on Flickr. It’s encouraging to see that both hobbies strengthen each other. The Choqoa on Twitter account also helps a little to drive int’l traffic. It’s pleasant to spot some people here that are equally into (digital) marketing and share the curiosity and passion for chocolate (jacksonbr, jomarbr, timwillems, Emakina). Stats are picking up slowly, there definitely is still work to do for building more extensive traffic, so I also created a Choqoa Facebook FanPage to which I invite all of you to join too!

And also off line in real life, a lot of encouraging things happened. On my chocolate safari in Düsseldorf I discovered new brands like Hussel, Coppeneur and Maglio, and also the Neuhaus bars bought later on in Antwerp seem interesting. I went behind the scenes at chocolatier Goossens, and all of the people whom I had taste from ‘my’ chocolate reacted exactly as I hoped, though most of the time I was rather nervous awaiting their first impressions.
I went networking on the Max Havelaar FairTrade Colloquium and was very enthusiast meeting the people from Callebaut over there. They were charmed by my story and invited me to share more about our passion. In return I learned a lot from them too, and above all they were really helpful in providing a lot of new information on the cacao market. Their Account Manager was even so friendly to provide me with the origin samples for that other great offline experience: my first wine & chocolate pairing.

As for actual business resulting from this blog, I’m excited by getting a freelance job for one of the world’s most famous chocolatier brands, and I’ll be helping to develop their online & digital strategy. Next to that, it’s still about exploring various opportunities for how we eventually really may get into cacao business: whether it is venturing in a self-owned project or by joining the industry at a marketing related position, that is still open. Next milestone will be the Salon du Chocolat, next week in Paris!

Related Stories:

1. Gut & Gerne chocolate bar in Dusseldorf
2. The Dusseldorf Collection

The big SF bloggers from BoingBoing TV treated their friend and neighbour on a visit in its ‘open house’ and deliver a nice series of short documentaries taking us behind-the-scenes at the TCHO offices. The first video result in this series is rather a very nice and appealing introduction in the cacao processing from ‘bean to bar’, or much better: from ‘pod to palate’! Enjoy Xeni Jardin and David Pescovitz rocketed into the world of cacao.

(mind you, there is short intrusive ad halfway)

Related Stories:

1. Cacao Chemistry. Films by TCHO pt.3
2. Cacao Chemistry. Films by TCHO pt.2
3. Choqoa introduces the finest origins to Barry-Callebaut

No related posts.

(more packaging photos on Flickr)

What is well done on this bar is the packaging: it opens like a booklet, and comes tied in with branded ribbon. Once unwrapped the packing reveals a bar foiled in yellowish paper. It’s one that clearly stand out from its competitors.
Ocumare de la Costa, a town near the Venezuelan “chocolate coast”, is a spot that delivers well-fermented Criollo with lots of delicate high notes. Local family-run cooperatives are harvesting some of the finest organic cacao in the world and the ‘Ocumare’ is the type of cocoa bean that gave Criollo its reputation they say.

For the bar itself, that is designed in bite size chunks, the texture is thick, smooth but not creamy, with a soft & munchy bite character that complements the luscious nature of the cacao. Aromas come one after another and hints nuts and cream, strawberries and has a clear ending that closes a modest but decently complex profile. This unobtrusive tasting experience makes this bar addictively easy to eat. Neuhaus (had) created a mild and very accessible origin flavour that doesn’t come too bitter at all, maybe some might discuss on the aftertaste.

All in all, I think this first Neuhaus origin bar was a nice discovery, and when the Ocumare wasn’t an immediate punch in the face, I surely may check out Neuhaus’ other flavours and buy some bars next time I walk by their store.

Related Stories:

1. Sao Tomé: Michel Cluizel vs. Neuhaus
2. Spreading the Passion
3. Report: The First Choqoa Tasting Event

Ferran’s talented chef brother Albert Adrià  is one of the key founders & partners of Cacao Sampaka, a company established with backup from Chocovic, the fine chocolate producing company rooted in Spain. Now to be clear before we continue, Cacao Sampaka is a store concept that is conceived as “Cacao Markets” and as such is not exactly delivering the products and quality that would fit our “Cacao Aficionado’s and Chocolate Sommeliers”, but there is a huge cacao history & culture to discover in the gastronomic roots of Barcelona, the stubborn Catalunyan culture and the historic position of Spain.

With Spain being the first country to experience cacao upon arrival from the New World, as well as having the inventor of the first chocolate making machine produced in 1780, Barcelona has a deep rooted history in chocolate. This gourmet city boasts not only a Confectionery Guild, a Pastry and Confectioner School, a Museum of Chocolate, a plethora of patissiers and chocolatiers, but also one of Spain’s oldest and largest chocolate couverture manufacturers, Chocovic, which  is located only one hour north of Barcelona in Vic. Wandering the streets around La Rambla, Barri Gotic and El Born in particular, you are certain to stroll by and discover Barcelona’s love of chocolate.

From the first of my several visits to Barcelona back in the nineties I remember my girlfriend was raving about the hot chocolate served in Bar Schilling, a chocolate so deliciously thick you could almost put your spoon straight up in the cup. Later on I started discovering small chocolate stores as Xocoa, also a local brand with several branches in town, that has recently been expanding towards Madrid, Valencia and Alicante a.o.  And eventually some years ago the Barcelona chocolate culture made me discover the luscious Cacao Sampaka stores. [update] Sampaka actually is a tiny place in Koulikoro, Mali, Africa, though I’m not sure if that is where Cacao Sampaka’s name is derived from. Its apparently also a location in Indonesia, which makes more sense for cacao… [/update] The brand is conceived as a cosmopolitan concept for a high quality chocolate shop and cafeteria, offering an indulgent shopping experience with around 300 cacao based products, ranging from bars to bonbons, and ice creams to sauces…

Catalans in particular, view chocolate as a food ingredient, not just a confection. And Ferran Adrià opened the door for experimentation with chocolate, not just for the creators, but aimed to inspire the consumers. Many of the currently trendy ideas, such as using herbs and flowers in chocolate, were around since long – they are actually rooted in the medieval uses of hot ‘Xocoatl’ drinks. But because of the authority of El Bulli’s top chef, customers now will eagerly accept, try and appreciate them.

These Sampaka chocolates are ‘designed’ more than simply ‘produced’ with Ferran Adrià being one of the three designers actively involved at Cacao Sampaka. A gourmet range of chocolate is made from beans from a single plantation, and once the beans are exhausted the flavour ceases to exist, as the producers move on to buy another plantation elsewhere in the world. Cacao Sampaka also lets you sample more than sixty different flavoured bars, most of them arranged as ‘collections’, with Parma Ham or Modena Vinegar, wines and spirits, fruits and truffles, etc. which you can buy as a collective whole or mix and match to tickle your taste buds.

(photo by Contemporanes)

The Sampaka Cacao chocolate store chain is aimed to be a delight not only for the chocoholics, but for anyone who can appreciate some creative culinary expertise. The chocolate tablets are divided into three main groups: dark, bitter chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate. Within these groups Cacao Sampake has five ‘families’: plain chocolate, flavours, crunchy, innovations and sugar-free.

While imaginative in theory, purists estimate Cacao Sampaka may be failing to deliver the punch you would expect from such ideas. I couldn’t tell since I’ve only tried a small variety of their ‘origin’ bars some years ago, though nothing had blown my mind yet compared to other brands and bars I had savoured. As far as I remember their ‘origins’ reach no further than country level, and focus a lot on percentages rather than the true detailed origins. And with a packaging design that has a clear touch of the original Chocovic bars, it’s a tough guess to check how real they are about their origin story. However, I’ll surely buy some again to put them to the test for the Choqoa blog, whenever I head back to Barcelona.

Related Stories:

1. The Chocolate Secret of Ferran Adrià

For long the label ‘Belgium’ evoked an atmosphere of best quality chocolate, linked to the craftsmanship of artisan chocolatiers that made ‘pralines‘, chocolate shapes filled with all kinds of flavoured fillings ranging from elaborated nuts, marzipan, pastes to liquor creams. And with a bunch of world class cacao producing brands on our soil too, we sure have a heritage in chocolate that would fill more than one book. Moreover even a lot of our tourism is driven by this chocolate attitude.
However times change, and since long to me Belgium is no longer a country of dark chocolate, but one of ‘just’ sweet chocolates. This small re-interpretation of the word “chocolate” vs. “chocolates” in English implies a whole lot of differences, it are even to very different worlds. Even our most famous “praliniers” like Pierre Marcolini and Dominique Persoone have actually (very) little to do with cacao or chocolate: they all focus on pushing and experimenting with flavours under the thin chocolate umbrella.

This article in Gentleman‘s magazine appropriately puts one of the world’s top cacao brands in the spotlight: Amedei, the house of Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri. Brother and sister Tessieri build their brand after their learning period at the french master chocolatier Valrhona. For the record, Valrhona was the first chocolate brand ever to label a bar ‘Grand Cru‘. The marketing term was coined when the company launched the first single origin bar in 1986 (Guanaja 70%, a mixture from South America).
Since Tessieri left Valrhona and to take revenge for their split, they started to work from Tuscany on what became the world’s premium on chocolate, based on the finest single origin selection of Chuao and Porcelana cacaobeans. Since long Chuao is a tiny village located in the northern coastal range of Venezuela, where beans of a very rare quality are harvested. Valhrona used to be the main taker of the Chuao yields, bit through very hard negotiations and a diabolic price war, Amedei kicked Valrhona from Chuao and obtained the monopoly on the most desirable cacao beans in the world. It’s still unclear where brands like Bonnat get their Chuao beans from now for their signature bars.

In this niche of top level chocolate we also find competitors like Michel Cluizel, Domori, ScharffenBerger, Pralus and some more, but what makes them special is the fact that they work with single estate cacao, and control the process “from bean to bar”. They control the quality of each harvest, buy at the source or even run their own plantations. Secondly they do not rely on blends to maintain a stable taste pattern, but work with the yields of a single harvest. This results in a pure uncontaminated taste that allows variations in aromas depending on the harvest, just like in wine vintages. Valrhona effectively has 3 bars that are launched by single estate and by year: the Grand Couva, Palmira and Ampamakia. I’ve been buying them since 2005, and I’m looking forward to buy the 2008 edition on my trip to Paris later this year.

For connaisseurs, the Amedei is range is estimated to be the best in the world, lauded by the french Maître Chocolatier Pierre Hermé and the bespoken Ferran Adrià, chef of the world famous El Bulli restaurant in Spain. When I checked the Wikipedia entry for Amedei, to my surprise and pleasure the picture that accompanied the article was a photo of me that I actually took for my Afficionado collection! I bite that one

Related Stories:

1. The Real Chocolate Secret of Ferran Adrià
2. Tasting Battle: Amedei Chuao, Porcelana vs. Valrhona & Marcolini
3. Gut & Gerne chocolate bar in Dusseldorf