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Bar Battle: Amedei “La Tavoletta 70%” vs. Zotter “Nicaragua”

By Evert-Jan on January 14, 2010 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Reviews

As said, munching on chocolate is always better with two or more varieties, so I had some bars from my stock and felt like doing a small tasting comparison. While browsing my selection I noticed the ‘grand dame’ Amedei next to some new Zotter bars. Curiosity aroused, so here’s another fun “from A to Z” Battle of the Bars:

Amedei: La Tavoletta Toscano Black 70%

No need to introduce the Italian brother and sister Tessieri that helped putting fine cacao crafting on the map like no other. The 70% Tavoletta smells fresh and flowerfull and this packaging design is timeless.
Chewing on it, it keeps its really fresh character, and almost reminds me of eating fresh raisins. An always present very light chocolate flavour gives persistent support to coffee, red fruit. It won’t let you go that fast and melts down really slowly. The taste curve keeps its pace and sustains a continuous experience, really ‘fleshy’ almost, forcing you to discover the subtleties. A lingering aftertaste only slowly leaves you waiting… for the next chunk.

Zotter: Labooko Nicaragua 80%

This rather new Austrian chocolate maker has some very interesting and unique origin offers, like this Nicaragua. The whole Zotter ‘Labooko’ series come in a unique design wrapping and a 35gr pocket fit size.
A well designed bar that smells very tobacco and leather. This Zotter bar takes a breath, starts slowly and then speeds up to a powerful release of unique flavors: liquorice, pepper, coffee that build up strong to the 80% and then go steep downhill your throat with a clear end point, a remarkable experience curve, hinting for molasses, walnut and mushroom, ending with surprising fruity goodbye.

Bonnat: Puerto Cabello 75%

I could not resist more chocolate and had to unfold another one. With a fresh delivery of some Puerto Cabello bars, I looked forward for what is said to be one of Bonnat’s best bars in his white wrap collection. Opening the bar you recognize the typical perfectly tempered bar that looks shiny and silky. The smell is a promise for something deep and rich, chocolaty, with nuts, caramel and cinnamon or clove?
Put this bar on your tongue and you will be welcomed by a very mature cacao experience, entering your palate with a polite bow. Then it starts to dance and waltz to every bud on your tongue releasing one flavor after the other back and forth: cookies, cloves, nuts in a moving mouth choreography with berries and tropical fruit. There is not a single touch of bitterness at all, and the 75% makes it a perfect balance of intensity and flavor. Damn I ate it all!

The Verdict

I’m not taking into account the wonderful Bonnat here. As for the experience itself, the Amedei and Zotter were a perfect opposites attrack! Amedei slow and straight, the Nicaragua like a tsunami.
Depending on your music preference, I’d say Amedei is that great piece of Classical music, where the Zotter Nicaragua rather plays the contrabass solo on a standards jazz record. Look at the packaging differences, it says it all! Though all three are awesome bars, I felt pretty jazzy today, so for me Zotter ‘Lobooka’ Nicaragua wins on points from Amedei ‘La Tavoletta’!

Report: The First Choqoa Tasting Event

By Evert-Jan on November 29, 2009 in Reviews, Tastings & Events

In Belgium, home of the world famous ‘Belgian Chocolates’, I’ve taken up the challenge to share and show people the path to real chocolate, fine origin artisan cacao.
After a long while I decided to do so starting with the now infamous Choqoa Sampler packs, and also by organizing chocolate tasting events to have the means and moments to personally inspire people with “the food of the gods”. My first event took place some days ago and here’s how people responded to chocolate:

We were with a nice group of about 10. After some earlier small informal tryouts I took some learnings with me and started off with a small introduction on the sexy cacao tree, pods and beans, and briefly explained the making process. We had some good questions then on the differences with industrial brands like Callebaut and I showed some pics of the Amano Chocolate factory.
Mosts really appreciated this introduction, because the cacao tree is funny, sexy and full of secrets, and how often do you wonder yourself about the source of your food?

Off to the tasting then! I learned from Martin Christy, founder of SeventyPercent.com, to make a program instead of just grabbing for some bars, so I made small plates with chunks from all the bars to hand out. I also distributed some sheets to take notes and a tasting wheel to have some reference to our taste buds. All this helpst to take the clutter of the table and focus on tasting chocolate. The Amedei was a great opener to ‘set the bar’and we then moved on to plenty of other bars, the full list is below this post.

Time after time most were pretty intrigued by the variety of aromas and sensations, though they suggested getting some more guidance in what flavors they should detect. A good point to work on! I would also have put some more variety in the selection, I still had too many options, but off course it also depends on your stock as well.

One of the participants, Johan, is doing a great job in sharing the message for me and he brought me a fresh Amano Ocumare milk from San Fransisco. All of us were really surprised by this very untypical milk sensation; it’s a superb bar that gives a whole new level to milk chocolate. I’m leaving the idea of ‘percentages’ more and more and this bar proves it’s very very possible.

As a special for this evening I also served a double fine whisky and chocolate pairing: but you can read all about this tantalizing pairing experience in my previous blog post.

Those true discoveries were the better moments, and most likely everybody said to have had a very nice tasting experience and gladly returned home with their own chocolate bars.

Check out the next Choqoa tastings en events on my EventBrite page, see you soon!

Read on for details of all the tasted bars!

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A London Tasting Session with SeventyPercent.com

By Evert-Jan on September 28, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Reviews, Trips

So, last Tuesday night was the first origin bar tasting event I attended, and I’m not talking about comparing some white label ‘Ecuador’-‘Ghana’-‘Venezuela’ bars from the supermarket or even ‘pralines’ from your chocolatiers.
Tasting hosts Martin Christy and Steve from the website www.seventypercent.com are spreading the passion on high quality luxury bars for years, and their website contains tons of addictive content with pleasant überdetailed tasting ratings. Here’s how it went…

The location was at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, where an intimate group of people came to explore the world of cacao, most of them were new to all this. While we started tasting, Martin was introducing each time the specific character and idea of each of the bars, revealing secrets and backgrounds on the whole bean-to-bar process, with excellent insights and fun facts on the go.

For every bar, we all shared what we smelled, tasted, discovered, appreciated and disliked. As more and more bars went over the palate – we had a godelicious selection of 9 in total, see notes below – all of the ‘newbies’ got fascinated by cacao and realized this was something not to be compared with ‘The Usual Chocolates’. All of them swiftly described the different hints they detected (nuts, fruits, citrus, bitter, liquorish,…) and how the chocolate felt in your mouth (silky, grungy, smooth, butterfish,…), making this all very pleasant and sociable.
Really interesting were the parts where Martin had something special for the tasting group like the cacao butter, and a chunk of raw cacao that he bought himself at a local farmer’s market in Cuenca, Ecuador… There were also dried cacao beans and nibs from different countries we could eat: I had a Grenada and an Ecuador bean, and though still far from a chocolate taste as we know it, one tasted like a hazelnut, and the other was much more bitter like walnuts… All so fascinating! And with trying out all this pure ingredients, I was getting really high and happy from all the substances!

List & some details of tasted bars:

Amedei Toscano Black 70: Amedei, named world’s best chocolate brand, this blend is all about cacao craftsmanship and setting a benchmark for further tasting.
Michel Cluizel “Hacienda Concepcion”: a bar used to debunk some of the myths of percentages and bitternes, it’s a typical smooth Cluizel with lovely fruity palate works.
Pralus Madagascar. One of my favorites, a fruity Criollo bar that has acid notes and a rather deeper darker taste with coffee-ish sensations.
Grenada Co: bar from a new batch of the lovely, small Grenada Chocolate Company. Smooth creamy texture, very good chocolaty taste. Remarkable to hear Martin say it tasted better than the same batch 2 weeks ago, as if it were a wine that only now got his taste in shape.
Akesson Madagascar: Akesson chocolate was really new to me, never heard of this brand. Very interesting bar with extravert flavor developments, a successful joint-venture product, crafted by a famous French chocolatier, with cacao beans from a plantation where also other top-notch brands get their finest sources. A bar I want more from…
Willie’s Venezuelan Black. Being more one of a UK TV hero, Willie’s Venezuelan was not my favorite, though not bad at all, but not really recommendable either.
Taza – Stone Ground: time for some USA bars now. This Taza was thrown in more for the sensation for its tradition inspired production by stone grounding, delivering the chocolate much rougher than the creamy and silky bars. Taza tries to get closer to some traditional approach of bar making, and though taste was pretty ok, resulting in a different, but generally less appreciated sensation.
Amano “Montanya” Lt Edition. Ah, up for some finely handcrafted American stuff, where a lot of good things are going on right now. I liked it a lot again, Amano bars have a very upfront sensation and this one makes me want to explore the complex finishings once more, again: fruits, nuts, spices are all there.
Amano Jembrana. A milk bar to close the evening, nice and different from the supermarket milks off course, but not mind blowing to me. (The Michel Cluizel milks are stunning I think)

Although I’ve been munching and tasting a lot of bars myself, this tasting with SeventyPercent really was pushing all of our senses forward: looking, rubbing, smelling, snapping, munching, melting, smacking, … The more you put effort in your tasting, the more pleasure you return yourself. Regardless of all I know to date, I still picked up a lot of new things from this intimate event and… I hope the have the same experiences soon for you too!

Two Days of Chocolate: a London tour

By Evert-Jan on September 27, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Trips

So here’s a post on my 2 day chocolate tour in London. I initially went to attend the monthly tasting event with Martin Christy and Steven from the website www.seventypercent.com, and grabbed the opportunity have a broader look at the London chocolate offering.
I had two goals: first was mainly looking at the artisan origin bar offering in the city, and second idea was to visit the best chocolatiers in town and look at their position to working with ‘real chocolate’.

(This post is about the tour, tasting reviews of bought bars follow as I eat them;-))

Day1. Chocolatiers and Gourmet Food departments

Whole Foods Market
First stop was the Whole Foods Market main store on Kensington High St. Beware, if you are a foodie, stay away from this place, it’s too dangerous for your credit! The overall offering is awesome, but also the chocolate section included almost all the high-end Valrhona origins, and the vast collection of Pralus was a treasure discovered.

Artisan du Chocolat
Next I tubed to Bayswater for the newest store of Artisan du Chocolat on Westbourne Grove. All of their clean white fashionable stores show a miniature conching machine. They say to make their own bars, but probably step into the process halfway. The shop staff was very friendly and though for sure I share little with the daily visitor profile, they were eager to engage a conversation.
We tasted some bars sampling very different flavors, chocolates, and caramels. I must say the ganache with red wine filling was very pretty, though I missed a tobacco one. An enthusiast customer even joined the talk and charmingly confessed discovering the Artisan du Chocolat chocolates scattered her Neuhaus addiction in favor of this “so much better” chocolatier
At a moment the friendly staff even tried to call the retail manager to give me a personal tasting session, unfortunately our agenda’s didn’t match. I left the shop with some of the origin bars: Bali, Madagascar, Brazil Rio Doce.

Melt Chocolates
Since both staff of Artisan and Martin from seventypercent.com suggested Melt Chocolates, I walked down the road for short peek at the Melt store. Located in charming Nothing Hill in a small house, the atmosphere was very open, with a kitchen in the back for live chocolate making. Here too staff was friendly and liked to share their story, however their concern to chocolate bars was less obsessed as mine, and their focus is a more open kitchen chef-like approach to chocolate creations.
What I found was nice were the handwritten manuals for each creations, which also mentioned at what time of the day the chocs were best savourated.

The Chocolate Society
Next and last on the ‘chocolatier’ list was The Chocolate Society in Westminster, near Sloane. The brand and idea was founded by Chantal Coady in close collaboration with Valrhona, but now operates more independently. Given that background off course the whole Valrhona bar range was available.
I had a chat with the sales rep on how and what people buy in chocolates as opposed to bars. She confirmed earlier suppositions where people are more interested in bars, especially dark ones, but that for the majority the desire for health overtakes the curiosity for true tastes.
Another nice one liner was the idea that chocolates are bought for others, while bars are being kept for oneself. There was one customer who actually bought all of the yearly origin editions (i.e. the Gran Couva, Palmira and Ampamakia), kept them in a wine cooler, and every year he compared the new release with all of the previous ones, dating back to 2001!
With that in mind, I couldn’t resist buying the gorgeous looking limited wooden box selection from 2008 to follow his example. My Varlhona series only date back to 2005…

Harvey Nichols & Harrods
From The Chocolate Society I walked back to posh Sloan Square and took Sloane Street towards the Harvey Nichols and Harrods food departments. Harvey Nichols had a nice set Amedei available, including a fresh batch of the CHUAO, and the Tavoletta series. Valrhona again too, they are really actively marketing their way on the London chocolate shelves. Next to that was a lot of candy though.
Harrods was much more on ‘Belgian’ chocolates than on bars, with a rather limited offer on the latter, which was disappointing for such an institute, but then again.

I guessed that was enough for one day. I still had to spare some energy for the real goal: the chocolate tasting event later that evening…

Day 2. Kew Gardens & Amedei-day with William Curley and Selfridges

Second day in London was a very different one. I traded London city for Richmond, strolling down to the large botanical KEW Gardens and UK’s best chocolatier.

KEW Gardens
Background story goes that one of my tweets on ‘cacao genealogy’ got tracked and answered by a Twitter user studying genealogy. She knew about KEW Gardens having ‘Theobroma Cacao’ plants, so that’s how I found out actually. And now being in London, I never was so close to see a real-life cacao tree living outside of the comfortable 20° equator habitat. It’s such a funny and sexy plant actually, and the one in KEW Garden’s special greenhouses was a very young example though, with others being in nursery that day.

William Curley
Next stop in the neighborhood was the shop of William Curley, (one of) the UK’s best chocolatiers, who explicitly traded Valrhona couverture for Amedei chocolate in order to make his stunning, award winning creations from the most precious source materials. Upon entering the small store, a sublime smell of chocolate crawled my senses as in none of the other stores. Wow.
The staff here was very friendly and we had a nice chat on chocolate, passion and hard labour, while sipping from a delicious Hot Chocolate made with Amedei Toscano Black 70 It was fascinating to listen to how William Curley and Amedei work together on some levels, where also the Amedei related foodie family supplies some of the other ‘best in class’ materials used in Curley’s chocolates.
It’s the only shop where I eventually did buy some of these award winning ‘chocolates’!

Selfridges Food
Last stop of my 2 day visit was back at Selfridges, just to check one last time… one more time… And Yes!… There was a new “San Jose Del Tambo 70%” bar from Askinosie which I hadn’t spotted last time at Selfridges. Even ‘worse’ was to find Amedei relaunched their whole collection, added completely new origin bars on top of that, and did a really beautiful packaging redesign. And next to all this, I finally found the famous Amedei ‘9’, a masterblend of 9 origins.
What else did a guy like me need to spend the last pounds…

The London chocolate scene is in a vibrant era for sure. With branches like iconic Rococo and new talent Paul A Young left unvisited, I should probably have tried & tasted more chocolatiers’ creations (like truffles and ganaches), and maybe be a little less obsessed by bars at such moments.
However the world of origin Grand Cru bars remains a very special one that doesn’t often overlap the one of a chocolatier, and world’s best cacao bars currently feel more comfortable at the luxury food shelves.

I surely had a great time in London and took back a lot of experience! If there’s something you’d like to know more about, just comment or mail me.
(Some more pic from the London Tour on my Flickr set)

Tasting Battle: Amedei Chuao, Porcelana vs. Valrhona & Marcolini

By Evert-Jan on September 15, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Reviews

A couple of days ago, we had our friends from Singapore over for dinner, and since I didn’t really had a (chocolate) dessert prepared, I decided to throw in some luxury bars for a chocolate tasting. The table was honored with Amedei Chuao, Amedei Porcelana and Valrhona Caraïbe, all from the “London Collection” and Marcolini’s “Tabasco” and “Puerto Cabello” origin bars.

We started with the Valrhona to get our palate ‘choq’ready. This 66% bar is a blended Trinitario creation, which combines a nice texture with a pleasantly bitter though and roasted taste. A powerful tone to start.

Then we headed for the beautiful Amedei Porcelana. The Amedei Porcelana his is a very rare bar, and Amedei only produce a limited amount of Porcelana chocolate each year. The boxes are even individually numbered! The texture was a first big difference with Valrhona, but the flavoring really was like a slow hike on the discovery of cacao for the palate. The bar starts only slowly to release its various characteristics from subtle fruity tones towards a real chocolaty sensation.

Such and addictive signature taste had me grab on the famous “Amedei CHUAO” without hesitation: ranked one of the world’s best bars, to some even the reference. Contrary to the Porcelana, the CHUOA doesn’t have you wait to be indulged in a sublime and overwhelming cacao sensation. Darker, stronger, more powerful, punchy, and thick on the tongue, this bar reveals how intense and complex cacao can be.

To boost the comparison vibe at the table, Marcolini joined our exploration of origin bars. Both the Tabasco and Puerto Cabello came in with very pronounced flavors, both times however so strong you would even suspect Marcolini to add in spices and herbs. After the subtle and strong explorations of cacao with Amedei, Marcolini almost only seemed focused on getting one flavor in charge, which came a bit like a deception, but it depends how you look at it probably.

It’s an easy decision: the Amedei Porcelana and Chuao really got gold, mostly because they mastered to always keep a chocolaty undertone throughout a great palate experience, whilst staying close with the nature of cacao. They had superbly crafted taste curvatures, releasing flavors one after another.
The excitement isn’t that much in having one very particular flavor (I think this is where Marcolini focuses way too much), but Amedei crafts bars that bring the full flavor cacao experience to live, from the first moment you break a chunk until the last bit melted and swallowed along your mouth.

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