Tag Archives: Michel Cluizel
Report: The 2nd Choqoa Tasting Event

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

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

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!… :)

Choqoa’s First Whisky and Chocolate Pairing

Choqoa’s First Whisky and Chocolate Pairing

by on November 3, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Reviews

A couple of days ago on an afternoon I sat together with WIB, an importer of great fine whisky, to tryout some pairings with chocolate. So far I only did once a pairing with chocolate and wine, which was really fun, but whisky was really an unexplored space for me… and that had to change!

Choqoa’s First Whisky and Chocolate Pairing

Bart is an exclusive importer and brought a fantastic Vintage Collection of 24 different small whisky bottles, and the first thing I have to say is that he made me (re)discover whisky! Just like I share my passion to help you discover great chocolate, this kind of whisky stands out from everything I had so far, because I just didn’t know better so far!

Given the idea that this pairing was new for both of us, we just started tasting some bars and bottles, all of them were wonderful, but off course finding a good match takes some more tasting along. The first thing to do to match alcoholic drinks and chocolate is to find the right tasting technique. I think enjoying chocolate with wine is very different from pairing it with whisky. With wine you’d melt a piece half in your mouth and sip in some wine, with whisky however it soon became clear we had to seek a different approach because of the strong character and the alcohol.
What did work was sipping the whisky first, swallow and only then join in the chocolate chunk. The melting chocolate then eagerly mixed with the evaporating flavours of the whisky that last long in your mouth, and that’s a ticket for some nice experience! :)

Before, I assumed whisky would need by definition a strong chocolate bar, high in cacao percentage like a Michel Cluizel Infini 99%, or a Pralus 100%. But it unexpectedly got a lot more interesting and pleasant to discover that with these particular bottles from a Carn Mor ‘Vintage Collection’, any chocolate had a chance to match. We sipped from exquisite single cask whisky distilled by Balmenach, Clynelish, Glenn Ort, Glengoyne, Glen Grant,… and munched mainly on Pralus with his bars from Trinidad, Equateur, Madagascar, Indonésie, Papouasie, a lovely Brésil and Dominican Republic!

Just as with wine some made war, some separated ways only halfway, and some made love from the start! But above all it was a great discovery to have this sensation of whisky and chocolate finding each other on a long adventure of flavours, and from both ways enrich each other’s aromas and sensations.

To our own pleasure, and because we were really enthusiast ourselves on this experience, our final winning pairings are going to be launched in a limited box, so let me know if you may be interested in this as well!

Preparing for the 2009 Salon du Chocolat in Paris

Preparing for the 2009 Salon du Chocolat in Paris

by on September 30, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Trips

After some lenghty tasty posts on a series of London discoveries in the past weeks, it’s time to look at Paris for the Salon du Chocolat 2009. Yep, it’s like chocolate season is officially open!

salonduchocolat-2008

My trip last year was revealing up a whole new world of food concepts and ideas, but also a labyrinth in retail, wholesale, agents and distributors. Now that I’ve got that puzzled out a little bit more, I’m looking forward for a new visit, with some promising lookouts… Unlike last year where I felt a bit more touristy, this time I’m looking forward to meet a bunch of great people.

I’ll be travelling with Sofie from Callebaut, a super enthusiast person who’s always eager to help anyone out on new biz. I should be seeing Valerie again, the export manager from Pralus again, after our lovely passionate chat on last year’s fair. Moreover Pralus will be launching tree new Venezuela bars: a Chuao, Cuyauga and a Porcelana as well!
I’m also having sales reps from Domori on the agenda, a great brand (isn’t it KüchenLatein? ;-) ) with a distinctive signature taste that also has a reworked series of Criollo to be discovered, next to so many other things.
Then there is Clay Gordon from the US, both of us want to meet each other so I hope all goes well, and maybe he can even smuggle some US bars over here (mmmm)… I’m also tweeting back and forth with Genaro from the Salon du Chocolat, and who knows I’ll bump into Carol “ParisBreakfast” Gillot, who I got to know through Flickr, is a waterpainting artist and crazy on chocolate!
And it’s not only the 15th anniversary of the Salon, this year also hosts the biennial Salon du Chocolat Professionel, where I’d love to take a peek as well. I’m really curious how in these economic times the fair will do, as Karen from TheNibble pointed out… Stay tuned on Choqoa.com!

PS: and for those in the UK, or not making it to Paris, there’s also the London Chocolate Week :) (also on Twitter)