NATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY
Did you know that chocolate traces its first use back 3000 years? The Aztecs were the first ones to use the bitter cocoa seed to make a drink, and as they say the rest is history!
Over these years, chocolate has taken many forms, as drinks, desserts, bars or sculptures. This National Chocolate Day, we would like to share with you the Art of Tasting Chocolate, since we believe good chocolate can be best experienced with the right tasting method, just like fine wine!
THE ART OF TASTING
Chocolate is enjoyed. Grand Chocolate is experienced.
Tasting Grand Chocolate is an art, perfected by the leading chocolate craftsmen for creating, evaluating and sampling exceptional chocolates.
Tasting Grand Chocolate is a rare, intense, and intimate experience. You have to take your time and concentrate to discover the complexity of the chocolate and appreciate the enjoyment as it reaches a crescendo. You can see its shine, feel its texture, hear its crunch but only when it is in the mouth does the experience truly begin.
The Art of Tasting can be broken down into four stages, all of which are necessary for experiencing the richness and complexity of a Grand Chocolate, as well as for revealing its aromatic potential.
Sight: First, look at the chocolate. Concentrate carefully on the polish, the shine, and especially the color. Colors can range from milky beiges, to pure mahoganies, to deep dark browns. It is an essential detail that reveals the varieties of cocoa beans used.
Smell: Next, smell the chocolate, breathe deeply and fill your mind and body with its aromas.
Listen: Listen by breaking a square into fragments between your fingers, and listen to the snap it makes.
Taste: Start by biting into a quarter of a chocolate square, let it melt on the tongue to taste the initial flavors, aromas and consistency. Gently rub the tongue against the palate. This causes the temperature of the chocolate to slowly increase, resulting in the final release of its flavors and aromas. Close your eyes and focus only on the development of the aromatic notes of the chocolate in the mouth.
At the precise moment when the chocolate melts in the mouth and the aromas are released, breathe gently through the nose, then inhale to fully experience the diversity and the complexity of the flowery, fruity or spicy, etc., notes.
Breath out to create suction in the mouth, like a whistling effect, causing all the aromas from the chocolate that has been worked by the tongue and the palate to come together and move up towards the nose. Take a moment to concentrate on your tongue, to feel, to savor the different flavors: acid, then if you wait a little longer you may experience the taste again, but this time concentrate on your nose, and discover the aromas that unleash themselves one after the other.
Similar to wine, you will first smell the most volatile aromas (primary or head aromas): These are instantaneous, fleeting flower or fruit aromas, which volatilize quickly and fade away in the middle of the tasting process.
Next, we move on to the aromas that are unveiled in the middle of the tasting experience, known as body aromas. These are essentially hot aromas, such as roasted almonds, hot bread crust, spice mix, etc. Allow yourself to linger over the taste experience, for you will then be able to savor the less volatile aromas of certain chocolates, known as final aromas: These are often woody, roasted nibs (cocoa nibs), malty, etc.
We hope you enjoy your sensorial trip! Make the most of this Chocolate Day with our promotion: Buy one and get the next at half price!*
*Offer valid on all products between 10/27-10/29.
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