Colombia | Choqoa

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!

Continue reading ‘Report: The First Choqoa Tasting Event’

Lately I’ve been ’sacrificing’ quite a lot of my premium bars to my friends and family to invite them into the world of chocolate, or better the world of ‘my’ chocolate. Because the only way to really enjoy your passion is to share it with others and listen to their input. From the Dusseldorf Collection I already briefly reviewed the Hussel Madagascar, Pralus Venezuela, and the Neuhaus Ocumare, origin bars I had taste at several visits. I wrote a story about my nephew with the Michel Cluizel 1er Cru ‘Mangaro’ and also with a bunch of various people shared a Pralus Colombia, Domori’s Sur Del Lago Classificado and their Arriba, a Coppeneur Trinidad bar and finally also unwrapped a Valrhona Ampamakia 2007 vintage.

The Pralus Colombia was mild and fudgy but came with original flavours, again a typically dark roasted Pralus bar that tempts you to discover its terroir aromas. The first Coppeneur I tasted was a Trinidad, and though the first impression wasn’t delivering a lot of ‘wow’, it seemed to taste distinctively better the day after; is it because the cacao had had the time to acclimatize after being sealed in so long in its plastic foil? The Ampamakia 2007 was a known friend from Madagascar, whose mild fruity character and gentle texture pleases to many. Both the Domori’s were a big discovery, since they manage to create indulgent, well-tempered smooth bars that taste far from ‘chocolate’, and with their very expressive hyper-aromatic characters they are definitely an hate-love challenger brand to introduce to people.

Armed with a short introduction into origin chocolate, people were all curious to expect and experience something different, and tasted the chocolate chunks with patience. Almost all of them spontaneously started talking about the taste of cacao on other terms than good or bad, and put aside the ‘bitter’ cliché. I never pushed them into a certain feedback or direction, but on every moment I had offered a tasting, people were into describing various flavours and textures rather than nag on the bitterness of bars.
It works better if you immediately showcase more than one origin bar, so people can nibble from various aromas and experience the differences and character varieties instantly, which always brought the taste discussion on a higher level.

Spread the passion!