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Two Days of Chocolate: a London tour

By 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.

Two Days of Chocolate: a London tour

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… :-)

Two Days of Chocolate: a London tour

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.

Two Days of Chocolate: a London tour

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… :-D

Two Days of Chocolate: a London tour

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)

Sao Tomé: Michel Cluizel vs. Neuhaus

By on November 13, 2008 in Reviews

When taking you first steps in single origin chocolate bars, it’s always good to kick off with at least two bars so you can experience and compare how different tastes can be. It gets a little more adventurous when you start exploring various brands from one single origin, take for example the Michel Cluizel “Vila Gracinda” 67% and the Neuhaus “Sao Tomé” 74%, both from Sao Tomé, an island republic in the Gulf of Guinea and birthplace of African cocoa in the 19th century.

In general, Sao Tomé can be a bitter and very cacao-ish, often starting aggressive, right on to the senses, and offers little in the way of subtle undertones on the palate. It comes mostly earthy, smokey sometimes enriched with sharp red fruits, cinnamon or vanilla.

In this Sao Tomé “battle of the bars” I myself detected big differences which is very fun. The Neuhaus to my experience came rather flat: opening up with a very smokey and earthy palate, hard on the cacao, that could be typical to Sao Tomé, but it doesn’t compensate elsewhere on the taste curvature. It ends rather blunt only hinting some tones to vanilla or acids, some presences of all to subtle aromas that leave you guessing with not much pleasure. I think Neuhaus achieves to offer more fun for buds with their Venezuela Ocumare.
The Michel Cluizel was playing in a whole different league, I hadn’t expected anything different him being one of the master chocolatiers producing wonderful bars with a story. Although from the same origin, to start with Cluizel is more picky on his beans and only uses the ‘Vila Gracinda’ plantation yields. The Cluizel also starts with the very chocolatey Sao Tomé aromas but swiftly brings in very fruity undertones. Then the creamy bar perfectly starts working towards very mature aromas in coffee, some dark kind of sugar and other indulgent aromas, but all masked in a sumptuous experience that easily makes you grab for another chunk.

All in all a good learning experience in both evaluating cacao percentages, which I actually even haven’t talked about here, and the importance of the whole bean-to-bar proces that makes a creation outstanding or just plain good. But it maybe also hints the difference between brands that have dedicated control on their production process, and brands that source from big professional chocolate makers…

What is Belgian Chocolate anyway? Pt.1

By on November 10, 2008 in On Chocolate & Cacao

“Belgian Chocolate”, what is it anyway? I would like to start a few posts on this to many a magic and indulgent combination of words.
Sure our country has a bespoken heritage and history when it comes to chocolate, but why really is Belgian Style different from other countries? I think there are 2 things that need some explanation: what is that Belgian heritage about and what should the word ‘chocolate’ cover. Already the word “chocolates” leads to a lot of confusion.  Chocolates, chocolate, confections and pralines are really not the same, though in English I feel these subtle differences aren’t always put clear. But let’s keep that for later and focus on Belgium.

How Belgium became ‘Chocolatic’

The Spanish not only brought cacao beans from the Americas to our continent, but were also responsible for the spreading through all of their conquered regions too. The first traces of cocoa were found in Ghent in 1635 in the Baudeloo abbey, only many years after Belgium was annexed with the Spanish imperium.

The strange link between Belgium, a small country for way from the equatorial cacao belt, and chocolate is not one to be too proud of at first from a historical point of view. The Belgian chocolate industry took off during the mid 1880’s, when the grasping king Leopold II of Belgium colonized Congo, a territory eighty-six times bigger than Belgium itself.
With the blood spilling colonization and despite the warfare, Belgium entrepreneurship got itself an easy way in to Africa’s cocoa grounds and were able to maintain the cocoa importing connections. With a steady and stable import of raw cacao, local business had the opportunity to find creative and innovative ways to develop chocolate products and businesses.

From the beginning of its introduction in Belgium, chocolate was considered a perfect gift. Even before the colonization of Congo, a Belgian company Berwaerts, was the first one to sell chocolate as tablets, pastilles, and figurines since about1840. Also world famous Callebaut was founded in that era, in 1850 by Eugenius Callebaut as a brewery in Wieze, where the company still has its HQ. Other Belgian chocolate companies soon were created and chocolate lovers will recognize a few names amongst Meurisse, Callebaut, Neuhaus, Cote d’Or, Jaques, de Beukelaere, Victoria… all together with lots of small brands that have gone away.

With the 1958 World Expo in Brussels Côte D’Or tempted everyone’s taste buds through a big event, through which Belgium’s reputation in chocolate became even more known worldwide. Especially for the world fair, Cote d’Or launched a brand new product, “Dessert 58″. This was a praliné filled milk chocolate and it was a hit right from the start!

Before we further explore the worlds of “praliné”, chocolates and “pralines”, in a next post I will dive deeper in which contemporary brands are putting Belgium on the map, and how they do so.

One month of Choqoa.com

By on October 24, 2008 in Marketing

So it’s been one month at Choqoa.com and what happened? At first I’m really happy myself to finally have created a place to share my passion. I really should have started this earlier, but speaking with hindsight is always easy. Blogging takes time and energy, though passion fuels the fire, so let’s rock on to make the story pay off. It’s a great after all to synthesize my addiction in words that I can easily share with you.

At present the site is gaining visitors from all continents, which very nice to spot and also the main reason for me to blog in English. In the map below you see where visitors come from and I indicated for fun the growing zone of cacao, which is about 20° up and down the equator. See for yourself:

Next to direct traffic and already some interesting Google search results, I also get a good amount of visits through my Cacao Aficionado photos on Flickr. It’s encouraging to see that both hobbies strengthen each other. The Choqoa on Twitter account also helps a little to drive int’l traffic. It’s pleasant to spot some people here that are equally into (digital) marketing and share the curiosity and passion for chocolate (jacksonbr, jomarbr, timwillems, Emakina). Stats are picking up slowly, there definitely is still work to do for building more extensive traffic, so I also created a Choqoa Facebook FanPage to which I invite all of you to join too!

And also off line in real life, a lot of encouraging things happened. On my chocolate safari in Düsseldorf I discovered new brands like Hussel, Coppeneur and Maglio, and also the Neuhaus bars bought later on in Antwerp seem interesting. I went behind the scenes at chocolatier Goossens, and all of the people whom I had taste from ‘my’ chocolate reacted exactly as I hoped, though most of the time I was rather nervous awaiting their first impressions. :-)
I went networking on the Max Havelaar FairTrade Colloquium and was very enthusiast meeting the people from Callebaut over there. They were charmed by my story and invited me to share more about our passion. In return I learned a lot from them too, and above all they were really helpful in providing a lot of new information on the cacao market. Their Account Manager was even so friendly to provide me with the origin samples for that other great offline experience: my first wine & chocolate pairing.

As for actual business resulting from this blog, I’m excited by getting a freelance job for one of the world’s most famous chocolatier brands, and I’ll be helping to develop their online & digital strategy. Next to that, it’s still about exploring various opportunities for how we eventually really may get into cacao business: whether it is venturing in a self-owned project or by joining the industry at a marketing related position, that is still open. Next milestone will be the Salon du Chocolat, next week in Paris!

Spreading the Passion

By on October 20, 2008 in On Chocolate & Cacao, Reviews

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.

Spread the Passion

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!