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Report: Choqoa Tasting Event 10.2

By on March 3, 2010 in Reviews, Tastings & Events

Wrapping up our second tasting this year, again it’s an evening to which I can look back loaded with sensations and discoveries that are changing people’s mind on dark origin chocolate. In our beautiful loft-lounge style setting I introduced the cacao harvest & production process, to show people how careful this pretty sexy tree needs to be treated to give us such fine chocolate. Every tasting session is somewhat different and the Q&A was focused around Belgium not being ‘The Promised Land’ of chocolate (anymore), the scary variety of substances in chocolate bars, en tips to keep and store chocolate.

Choqoa Chocolate Tasting Events
Chocolate and its plethora of surrounding topics always make a great conversation starter, so pretty soon we had a good vibe, getting us open to enter the tasting part. After 4 bars only, people were amazed already by my broad offering and the variety in tasting sensations, even ‘less appreciated aroma’s’ were adding to overall discovery experience. :)
Noteworthy where also organic Pacari, the recent Akesson’s and absolutely the handcrafted Amano Jembrana, which I exclusively got from the USA directly from founder Art Pollard, with a big help from Martin at SeventyPercent as well in London.
These treasures aside I also showed a bloomed bar of Willie’s (don’t know how that happened actually), and wowed them with the Michel Cluizel ‘Grand Lait 45% milk bar’ (‘Is this milk chocolate?!’), shared unroasted and roasted cacao beans I received from Pralus, and put the cherry on the cake with the Pralus 100% as the usual über chocolate experience!

You can tell it was fun if people say they would come back for another tasting session, hope to see you next time as well!

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Report: Choqoa Tasting Event 10.1

By on February 10, 2010 in Tastings & Events

The first Choqoa Tasting Event this year was again very different from the previous editions, and not only for the reason that people came from across the country to attend our Antwerp session!

Choqoa Chocolate Tastings

Among the attending chocolate explorers we had Gunther, one of the founders of a chocolate brand (Baru, Diepenbeek), eager to learn about making his own chocolate in some future; Geert, a dedicated chocolatier & patissier who passionately cares about his base Valrhona couverture (Patisserie Vercruysse, Kortijk); and Mo, who runs an inspiring lunch bar and is a former winner of the Best Sandwich competition!

I found it pretty intriguing given their background they often did heard of several of the top chocolate brands we tasted, but hadn’t take the effort or had the chance to taste every variety that they could get their hands on? On the other side also some US brands like Taza and TCHO were not unknown and I was happy to have a TCHO ‘Fruity’ bar on the tasting table (thanks to @ActiveLife). And with brands like Zotter and Pacari, I had something new to offer even for these professionals :)

It was utmost pleasant and charming to see how participants discovered variations in freshness, color, melting patterns and lingering aftertastes by themselves. Even to the detail where they felt one bar more coming up in front or gathering in the back of their tongues and palates. All added their views and knowledge on chocolate and food so we got some lenghty talks along the tasting session as well.

Eventually, again this gourmet chocolate tasting event was full of fun, sharing tasting impressions and notes, discovering the immersive world of real fine chocolate, and brainstorming on future possibilities!

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Report: The 2nd Choqoa Tasting Event

By on December 11, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Tastings & Events

The second ‘official’ Choqoa Tasting event yesterday in Antwerp was a great fun chocolate celebration. We were with a group of 16 enthusiast people; friends bringing their own friends, and even an older couple who got the Tasting Event as a birthday gift from their daughter: what a great surprise! And also my chocolate buddy Sofie ‘Chocolaterie’ from Barry Callebaut, happily joined this event.

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Learnings from previous sessions made me make a selection with bigger care and offer a broader variety of cacao experiences. I also therefore bought some Domori and found myself a bunch of bars I hadn’t taste myself yet: Zotter, Pacari, and Bouga.
I started with a small introduction into cacao trees and pods, the bean-to-bar process, and to all delight Sofie from Callebaut passionately helped explain into detail the various steps, with good interaction from the crowd.

Off to the tasting! I projected the Amano tasting wheel in the screen to give guidance to the tasting, and people really enjoyed discovering such a chocolate sensations. This time I had a good variety that really added value to the tasting experience and was more than appreciated. It was pleasurable to see people taking chocolate to the next level! Everybody shared his impressions so the atmosphere was pretty comfortable. Halfway already people giggled and said they started to feel the chocolate raising to their brain, giving them the cacao ‘high’ :) Yes it’s positive magic.

All in all we had 10 different chocolates, list & details are below, and everybody really said to have enjoyed, and even would return another time! Everybody happily took their 2 included bars home, bought some more even to continue sharing the passion.
I’m already looking forward to the next event, you’re all invited to join Choqoa!

Read on for details of all the tasted bars!

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Report: The First Choqoa Tasting Event

By 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?

Choqoa Chocolate Tasting Event

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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It’s finally here: the 2009 Choqoa Sampler selection

By on November 22, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao

Chocolate has put me to the test lately: slow distributors, fast selling stocks, last-second changes… I almost had it all! But most important is, all pieces are finally joined together. I think the booklet and detail sheets will make it all in all a nice package and look really nice. And on top of it all, I believe it’s a nice selection of chocolate bars to introduce you to a new level of Cacao appreciation.

Choqoa 2009 Sampler

From the plethora of bars on display at The Salon du Chocolat in Paris, I’ve made a modest selection that takes you on an imaginary tour of the cacao growing belt:

Michel Cluizel takes us to the Sambirano valley in Madagascar and to the Dominican Republic, where we experience an entirely different character from the same brand. Francois Pralus leads the way to Brazil and demonstrates – together with AMMA Chocolates – how similar beans can be mastered in different ways. Finally, Bonnat takes us back to the heart of fine cacao:  his Venezuelan masterpieces from the mythical Chuao cacao beans.

I hope this selection pushes you forth into the exploration of real, original chocolate. Whether you’re in for trying different regions, different percentages or different ways of production – that’s entirely up to you. As long as you’re having fun, you can discover anything you want in a great chocolate bar.

With the sampler I hope your fine origin discoveries will only make you hungry for more!… :)