Table Of ContentT H E
O C O L
H A
C T
E
T A S T I N G G U I D E
E AG RAN IE YUH
CHRONICLE BOOKS
SAN FRANCISCO
For my parents, and for Hamish.
Copyright © 2014 by Eagranie Yuh.
All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced in
any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.
ISBN 978-1-4521-1164-3 (pb)
ISBN 978-1-4521-3001-9 (epub, mobi)
Design and illustration by Erin Jang
Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com
Contents
Introduction
4
The Secret Life of Chocolate
6
How to Buy Chocolate
14
How to Taste Chocolate
28
How to Host a
Chocolate Tasting Party
36
Selected Bibliography
46
Acknowledgments
47
Chocolate Tasting Notes Sheet
49
Introduction
I love chocolate. I love its diversity—
how there’s delicate, nuanced chocolate that
makes me sit and ponder, and how there’s
uncomplicated chocolate doped with nuts
that satisfies my craving for crunch. I love
that delicious chocolate is the result of people’s
hard work, passion, and dedication to getting
every detail right. I love when I share chocolate
with friends and their eyes light up, and when
I share it with strangers and make new friends.
There has never been a better time to love
chocolate. You can find a decent chocolate
selection in most grocery and specialty stores,
and even shop at stores devoted entirely to
fine chocolate. You can take seminars on choco-
late, pair chocolate with beverages, and enjoy
chocolate at every stage of a five-course feast.
You can explore chocolate in confections
and truffles, or savor the inherent flavors of
chocolate by itself. Did you know that chocolate
can taste like dried cherries, cloves, caramel—
or even mushrooms, rose petals, or toasted T
H
E
nuts? What’s more, these notes are inherent
C
to the chocolate itself, not derived from H
O
added flavorings. C
O
L
Do you prefer bright and fruity chocolate, A
T
or dark and earthy? The only way to find out E
T
is by tasting. In this guide, you’ll learn how to A
S
select, shop for, and taste chocolate. And, to T
I
N
help you get started, I’ve highlighted some G
of my favorite makers in sidebars. K
I
T
Taste chocolate. Taste promiscuously.
Taste alone; taste with friends. Taste high 5
percentage, low percentage, single origins,
blends. Taste chocolate with stuff in it. Taste
chocolate that got ace reviews and ask what the
big deal is. Taste chocolate you’ve never heard
of and wonder why it took you so long to try it.
Taste chocolate. It’s a tall order, but I’m
sure you’re up for the challenge.
T H E
S E C R E T
L I F E
O F
CHO C OL ATE
In the 1500s, the Veracruz coast on the Gulf of Mexico
was the place to be. There, Aztecs reveled all night—feast-
ing, dancing, and drinking chocolate laced with cinnamon,
anise, pepper, and orange blossoms. Legend has it that
the warrior Montezuma consumed fifty chalices of the brew
before attending to his harem of wives. History has not
T
H
recorded their reactions.
E
A civilization earlier, the Mayans popularized drinking C
H
chocolate, sometimes spiked with achiote, which would O
C
stain the drinker’s lips blood-red. But the first humans to O
L
consume cacao were the Mokaya, a group of fishers and A
T
farmers who lived in what is now Mexico’s Chiapas state E
between 1900 and 1500 b.c. T
A
More than three thousand years after the Mokaya, S
T
Christopher Columbus encountered cacao off the coast of IN
G
Honduras. In 1527, Hernando Cortés took cacao beans
K
back to Spain, but it wasn’t until 1585 that Spanish traders I
T
began to ship them in earnest, kicking off the world’s love
affair with chocolate. 7
By the 1700s, chic Europeans were flocking to cafés to
sip chocolate. The French version was thick and luxuri-
ous, while Italians preferred a thinner brew scented with
orange or lemon.
Then there was the Industrial Revolution. In the 1800s,
Coenraad van Houten invented dutching, a process to make
poor-quality cocoa powder more palatable. Similarly, Swiss
inventor Daniel Peter, helped by Henri Nestlé, invented
milk powder, which eventually led to milk chocolate.
And Rodolphe Lindt invented the conche, a machine that
agitates chocolate to refine its flavor and texture.
Today, chocolate is equal parts childhood delight and
grown-up indulgence.
But where does it come from?
Chocolate Grows on Trees
Yes, chocolate grows on trees. To be precise, chocolate
is made from cacao, the fruit of Theobroma cacao, a fussy tree
that grows up to 20 degrees above and below the equator, in
an area known as the cocoa belt. Brightly colored cacao pods
jut straight off the tree’s trunk and main branches, looking
like ridged, elongated footballs. Workers harvest each cacao
pod by hand, wielding a sharp blade attached to a long stick.
Inside each pod are twenty to forty seeds, each swaddled
in slimy white pulp that tastes like the love child of lychee,
guava, and papaya. The seeds are piled together, fermented
for two to fourteen days, and stirred regularly. During this
time, bacteria and yeasts from the air convert sugars in the
fruit into a soup of acids and alcohols—in the process, creat-
ing flavor precursors, the building blocks of flavor. After
fermentation, the beans are dried, packaged in burlap bags,
and then shipped to a chocolate maker.
C hocolate from Bean to Bar
Chocolate makers transform cacao beans into choco-
late by roasting, winnowing, grinding, and conching.
First, roasting turns the flavor precursors developed
during fermentation into full-blown flavors. Next, the beans
are winnowed to remove their papery husks, crushed into
T
H
cacao nibs, and ground into a paste. At this point, the name
E
switches from cacao to cocoa. That is, the cacao nibs C
H
are ground into a paste, called cocoa mass or cocoa liquor. O
C
Cocoa mass and cocoa liquor are used interchangeably— O
L
and to add to the confusion, there’s no alcohol involved. A
T
To the cocoa mass, a chocolate maker can add sugar E
to make dark chocolate, or sugar and milk powder to make T
A
milk chocolate. (White chocolate isn’t actually chocolate; S
T
it’s a mixture of cocoa butter, milk powder, and sugar. Find IN
G
out more on page 20.) Some chocolate makers may add
K
lecithin—an emulsifier that improves chocolate’s fluidity— I
T
and vanilla.
9
Next, chocolate is refined in a conche for two to forty-
eight hours. A conche is a machine that heats and agitates
chocolate to improve texture and flavor. It takes skill to
drive off undesirable flavors while retaining desirable ones.
Underconched chocolate can be harsh and acidic, and
overconched chocolate flat and lifeless.
After conching, chocolate is tempered. At a molecular
level, chocolate can adopt up to six arrangements, but
only two of them are stable. Tempering is the process of
