Tag Archives | Bonnat

Preparing for “Le Salon du Chocolat” in Paris

By on October 22, 2008 in Trips

The “Salon du Chocolat” goes around worldwide with famous fairs in New York, Tokyo, Beijing, even Moscow, and next week shows in Paris with a 4 day fair, from October 29th till November 2nd. A one-way cacao Valhalla, the ultimate theme park, or eventual deception… I’m haven’t really got a clear view about what to expect from the 2008 “Salon du Chocolat“.

It is hard to imagine entering the halls in Portes de Versailles, that has more than of 12.000m² to offer for chocoholics, cacaophiles, and aficionados. I only know I’m going one day out of four, for the first time, and the plan is to discover more about artisan & origin chocolate explorations. With a vast range of all known top chocolatiers and artisan brands present at the fair, there sure must be lots of fun to share with other people.

The Paris team for the Salon conducted an amusing survey together with Le Figaro/Madame, on the French and their chocolate habits. Some fun facts:

  • Men and women, everyone prefers dark chocolate (50%), followed by milk chocolate (35%) and white chocolate (15%).
  • Solitaire or social? 24% of men do not share their munches … against 22%  of women. Shared with family, between lovers, then friends, chocolate however still remains primarily a pleasure that is offered to and experienced together.
  • 41% of women believe that eating chocolate gives them more pleasure than making love …
  • In buying habits, respondents like to buy their chocolate in priority from small but high quality artisan chocolatiers (48%) and in a much lesser extent from big industrial brands (23%).

I’ve been spotting the 400+ participants list, which includes some 140 chocolatiers, and I’m glad to see a whole range of favourites in place: Domori, Lindt, La Maison du Chocolat, Maison Bonnat, Michel Cluizel, NewTree, Phillipe Pascoët, Pralus and the Belgian new Zaabär too.
Some others to discover are: Nestlé, De Bondt and Cacao Barry (from Meulan). I’ll also seek after bars from Dagoba, and USA brands like De Vries, Scharffen Berger, Guittard, and maybe TCHO, although none of these are listed with a stand. Big misses are Amedei, Valrhona and German brands like Coppeneur.

I’ll keep you posted with writings later on!
Any other brands you think of are worth checking out?

Bonnat 100%

By on September 28, 2008 in Reviews

Following the earlier post of the 100% in Paris experience, I thought is was a good moment to take out the 100% Cacao bar from Chocolat Bonnat. Amidst the white wrapped bars that Bonnat offers with different origin varieties, the 100% bar firmly stands out with its bright red packaging. It actually has a very high Charlie & The Chocolate Factory feeling. If you look at the shape and design of the bar – ready to break off  bite ready chunks -  you’ll probably recognize its structure from the current Choqoa blog header image. Bonnat has a simple and classic looking bar, with in the middle a bigger area reserved for the signature. But how does it perform?

(Photo by Everjean)

Upon breaking a piece off, the first smell already announces this is going to be a very bitter bar with short powerful touches of raw cacaobeans and spices. The tempering is great. The taste curve starts rather flat, and only briefly releases a first impression of what’s about to come. Then the taste experience softens down away, and even almost disappears. The bar then melts further and makes a striking come back with deep cacao scents, where it reveals a very strong character, opens up its full aromas, with a biting bitterness mostly at the end.

It’s a bitter bar for sure, that runs dry your mouth, with an aroma that relates a little to artichokes. The Bonnat 100% reminds of Cluizel’s Noir Infini, though I think Cluizel tasting experience focuses on variety in tones of aromas, and the Bonnat’s strength is a variation of bitterness. I liked to try out this red wrapped Bonnat, though I found this bar less expressively tastefull. It’s bitterness is its strenght, but also its prevails over taste.

The bar also had some clear fat blooming on it, but it was easily wiped off.

(Photo by Everjean)

The Dusseldorf Collection

By on September 23, 2008 in Trips

Here is a quick shot of the brands and bars I found in some shops on my cacao safari in Dusseldorf from last week. Expect more postings on this collection soon as I’ll munch bar by bar…. It was really fun to spend my money on some of the most exclusive bars that I had never found in a store before!

The Dusseldorf Collection

Especially the exquisite golden Domori tablets, including the famous Porcelana, are a great acquisition. I could just not resist buying the whole range at once, including the Blend series. I’m also looking forward to taste the Coppeneur bars, which are also new to me. The Tsachila bag may be interesting too, since it is made by wild cacao beans collected in nature by local indians as opposed to farm cultivated beans.