Tag Archive for 'Pralus'

Video: Interview with François Pralus at Salon du Chocolat

Published on December 13, 2009 in Interviews & Video and Trips. 0 Comments Tags: AMMA, Bonnat, Chocophile, Clay Gorden, interview, Paris, Pralus, Salon du Chocolat, Video.

François Pralus has been inspiring and helping the cacao world forward to indulgent experiences in fine origin cacao bars. Personally I like his dark signature a lot. He makes you discover cacao in a bold way and at the same time explore the flavors that makes eacht bar so typically different, by interpreting regions and beans, and delivering a variety of typicalities that make the whole cacao experience so rich.

Pralus recently took some time at The Salon du Chocolat in Paris to offer us a brief video interview, joining my previous talks with Clay Gorden ‘The Chocophile’, Frederick Schilling from AMMA and Stéphane Bonnat. It took me some time to add the subtitling, but now at least all of you can enjoy his passion.

François takes his own angle on the same questions I’ve been asking all of the above cacao icons. He really hunts for high quality plantations, passionate people and aroma development. It’s very inspiring to see how different all of them respond and share their proper focus on building wonderfull chocolate stories.

Enjoy the short video interview with François Pralus (though I was a bit distracted), the last in the video interview series I shot at The Salon in Paris. I hope it makes you discover and appreciate his chocolate in a new way as well!

Report: The 2nd Choqoa Tasting Event

Published on December 11, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao and Tastings & Events. 0 Comments Tags: Amano, Austria, Bonnat, Bouga, Callebaut, Dominican Republic, Domori, Ecuador, event, Francois Pralus, Guanaja, Indonesia, Madagascar, Michel Cluizel, Nicaragua, Pacari, Pralus, tasting, Valrhona, Venezuela, Zotter.

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.

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!

Continue reading ‘Report: The 2nd Choqoa Tasting Event’

Report: The First Choqoa Tasting Event

Published on November 29, 2009 in Reviews and Tastings & Events. 0 Comments Tags: Akesson, Amano, Amedei, Bonnat, Carn Mor, Chuao, Colombia, Dominican Republic, event, Francois Pralus, Madagascar, Michel Cluizel, Ocumare, pairing, Pralus, Sambirano, SeventyPercent, tasting, Trinidad, Venezuela, whisky.

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’

It’s finally here: the 2009 Choqoa Sampler selection

Published on November 22, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao. 3 Comments Tags: AMMA, Bonnat, Brazil, Chuao, Dominican Republic, Madagascar, Michel Cluizel, Paris, Pralus, Salon du Chocolat, Sambirano, sampler, Venezuela.

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.

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

Published on November 3, 2009 in On Chocolate & Cacao and Reviews. 1 Comment Tags: Balmenach, Brésil, Carn Mor, chocolate, Clynelish, Dominican Republic, Equateur, Glen Grant, Glengoyne, Glenn Ort, Indonésie, Madagascar, Michel Cluizel, pairing, Papouasie, Pralus, Trinidad, Vintage Collection, whisky, WIB, wine.

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!

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!