Chocolate News and Notes

Host Your Own Chocolate Tasting

March 2010

As promised, this month’s newsletter is all about hosting a chocolate tasting. It isn’t step-by-step per se (that would be too long!) but it is more a list of helpful hints that I’ve gathered over the past few years. I counted the other day and figured out that I’ve done 96 tastings (!) most of them at the Deli, but some of them out in the community at libraries, schools, etc. I’ve also had the good fortune to be an audience member for a number of presentations given by experts in the field. From all this I’ve learned a bit about what works and what doesn’t, as well as how to best prepare.

THE most important thing is this: There is no certificate or diploma that you need to have to host a tasting — I encourage you to just jump in and give it a try. Get organized, get your hands on some great chocolate, invite some fun, outgoing people over, and just do it! The worst thing that could happen is that you have a chaotic chocolate-eating extravaganza. The best thing that could happen is that you have a fun, thoughtful tasting/discussing with your friends and everyone learns something new about chocolate. Both scenarios are somewhat appealing, non?

As always, I am only an email (duffatzingermansdotcom  (duffatzingermansdotcom)  ) or a phone call (734-663-5282) away if you have any questions or comments for me. Have fun tasting!

Duff


duffatzingermansdotcom  (duffatzingermansdotcom)  
734-663-5282

· A couple weeks before your tasting ·
Decide on your tasting theme
The first thing to decide is whether you want to taste chocolates from several different companies or just stick to one brand. If you are just starting out and really trying to get to know the major brands out there, I suggest tasting them one at a time. Cluizel, Pralus, Askinosie, Bonnat… you won’t be able to taste an entire product line (you’ll want to limit the tasting menu to about 6 chocolates), but you will get a really good feel for the style/quality of each brand if you taste through them methodically.

If you want to sample a wider selection of chocolates, then settle on a theme (%, cacao origin, company origin, etc.) and gather chocolate bars from different brands to taste and compare. Chocolates in the 70-75% range, milk chocolate, chocolate from Madagascar, American bean-to-bar chocolates… the possibilities are endless!

Start gathering your chocolate!
Once you decide on a theme for your tasting, start building your tasting list. How many different chocolates will you taste? What chocolates do you want to compare? Where can you buy the chocolates you need (i.e. online, at Zingerman’s, etc.)? Usually a bar of each chocolate is sufficient for a group of 6-8 people, but I always have an extra one ready — just in case.

I strongly suggest including a “comparative” chocolate in your tasting line-up, mostly to serve as a reminder of the huge difference between mass-market sweets and fine chocolate. It’s the baseline from which most of us are starting and the “memory” chocolate that is burned into most of our olfactory databases. Tasting Dove, Hershey’s “Special Dark” or another well-known chocolate at the beginning and the end of the event is very, very illustrative, no matter what your theme is.

Send out some invites!

You want to try to taste chocolate when you are a little bit hungry, preferably not after a meal. Try for a mid-morning or late-afternoon gathering, 11-noon or 3-4 PM. An hour-long event should be plenty in the beginning. Establish some friendly guidelines to set your guests up for olfactory and gustatory success, like asking folks to refrain from drinking/eating strong things like coffee/garlic/mint before coming over (including toothpaste!) and from wearing perfume/cologne/scented chap stick/corsages (it could happen!) etc.

Start doing your (fun) homework
Learn as much as you can about the chocolates you will sample at the event. This usually starts with the company: What do you know about the people who make the chocolate? Do they actually make their own chocolate, bean-to-bar? If so, how long have they been making chocolate? What are their quirks? Do they favor certain processing techniques (ex. dark-roasting cacao beans)? Are they good at everything, or are they just famous for a couple of things? Start out by checking out company website and/or promotional materials — heck, you can even try calling the company and asking some questions. Some companies are kind of secretive so you can also ask your friendly local chocolate lady (moi) for info if you get stumped.

There are some good resources out there on the subject of evaluating chocolate and tasting thoughtfully. Some chocolate makers provide information/guidance on their websites, and there are some good books, too:

Maricel Presilla The New Taste of Chocolate
Chloé Doutre-Roussel The Chocolate Connoisseur. Chapter 4 is all about tasting. These are 25 pages that I have read over and over — especially when I first started my job at the Deli! You can find some of the content of this chapter on Chloé’s website here: http://www.chloechocolat.com/pdf/tasting.pdf
Dina Cheney Tasting Club (paperback comes out next month!)

· One week before your tasting ·
Taste the chocolates yourself
It is important to taste the chocolate/candies yourself before you host the event. This gives you the chance to take some notes and evaluate on your own time. Go through the steps (know, look, smell, touch, taste, etc.) and take some notes on each bar. Try to taste a few times, maybe even on consecutive days, to fully experience the chocolates. I know, it is a hard job :)
Make your materials list
Some supplies you might need for your tasting include:

  • Big post-it notes to stick up on the wall
  • Plain bread/unsalted crackers
  • Water (room-temperature)
  • Chocolate!
  • Pens/pencils
  • Prizes — Have fun! Stickers, t-shirts, your favorite chocolate recipe on a recipe card, etc.
  • Paper to take notes on, or maybe little notebooks for everyone!
  • Vocabulary sheet/visual aid — I find it is helpful to provide folks with a copy of a tasting wheel. You can create your own or find one online. A couple that I like:
    - Vosges
    - Amano
  • A chocolate “Placemat” at each seat, with numbered or lettered squares to organize the chocolates.
  • A tasting list
  • Anything else you think will be relevant and helpful to your guests!

As you prepare, worry about protocol but only insofar as it will help people feel comfortable and ready to taste. For example, don’t stress about color coordinating your handouts and writing everyone’s name in calligraphy before they arrive, but do make sure you have water and bread.

· Day of your tasting ·
Prepare the room — remember: no flowers, room spray, potpourri, etc. Optimize your senses! Gather your materials and get as much done in advance as possible, just like you would for a dinner party. Make sure you eat something (real food) before the tasting, too otherwise you will feel funny. Believe me I know.

· Tasting time! ·
Relax everyone! Remember this is fun! As Presilla notes, the goal of a tasting is to help us to hone our senses and form opinions “without turning the act of enjoying chocolate into a pretentious ritual.” There is a very fine line between having fun tasting chocolate and having no fun at all because you are terrified you aren’t doing it right. Make your guests feel welcome and at ease, assure folks that there aren’t any right answers, that the only taste that counts is their own, not to worry about using the “right ” words, etc.

It is fun to start the tasting by asking, “On a scale of 0-10 (“0″ being you’ve never eaten chocolate in your life and “10″ being you’ve written a book on the subject), how confident do you feel about tasting chocolate?” You could pick another question, depending on the specific content of your tasting. Have everyone write their score down and share it with the group, then ask the same question at the end. Hopefully, it will go up not down!

Set some goals for the tasting and share them with your guests. By the end of the event, what will people be able to do that they couldn’t do before? What will they learn over the course of the hour? Everyone likes to look back and the end and feel like they’ve made progress.

Introduce each chocolate before you taste it. You can do this by telling a mini “story” about the brand or by having one of your guests read the label of the bar aloud. Gathering stats together as a group like this is a nice way to get people to talk and do things “live.”

When you start to evaluate the chocolate (looking for the characteristics we talked about in January’s newsletter!) encourage your guests to think critically. This is where the difference between eating chocolate and tasting chocolate becomes apparent. Ask the group questions to jog the discussion. Sometimes it is helpful to give people either/or and yes/no scenarios to think about: “Would you describe this bite as velvety or silty” “If you had to use one word to describe this chocolate to a friend, what would you pick?” “Does this chocolate make your mouth water or make it dry?”

Ask for feedback, especially if you plan on doing this more than once. The most important question you can ask is: “How much fun did you have?” Because — in the end — that’s what it is all about.

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