First study the color, then the nose, the structure and taste: As for any good wine, tasting chocolate is both a treat and a serious art, requiring regular practice to fine-tune the senses.
And who better to offer a lesson in chocolate tasting than Pierre Herme, the French master pastry chef?
“You start by looking at the texture,” he said at a recent tasting organized in Paris by the “Chocolate Crunchers’ Club” — a 150-strong fellowship created three decades ago to celebrate a common passion for the cocoa bean.
“I rough it up a bit first — crushing it to test its resistance,” Herme said, pressing a blade onto various parts of the chocolate bonbon on his plate.
Then comes the time to taste, paying close heed to “intensity, acidity, the lightness of the texture, the finish” — how the flavor lingers after each mouthful — “and for flavored chocolates, the balance between the chosen aroma and the chocolate itself,” he said.
Without forgetting the most important of all: “pleasure,” Herme said.
Five times a year the club’s members gather around some of France’s top artisans to taste all manner of cocoa-based treats — from truffle bars to mousses, cookies, patisseries and ice creams.
The ritual is always the same: Each taster needs a small knife, a glass of water and some bread to cleanse the palate.
“The knife is essential, especially for chocolate bonbons,” said Claude Lebey, the doyen of French food critics and one of the founders of the club, gathered for the occasion in a Paris mansion.
“You have to slice the sweets in two, to see the thickness of the coating. It should offer resistance, but should not be too thick either, or it stops you from tasting what is inside,” Lebey said.
Lebey confesses to keeping chocolate stashed away in various corners of his apartment so he can indulge in a quick nibble at any moment.
“Hmm, the coffee in this one is dosed just right,” he mused approvingly, sucking on a bonbon named “Brasilia,” created by Jean-Paul Hevin — a star Parisian chocolatier with his own stores in Japan and Hong Kong.
“It’s a dark chocolate ganache, but I added a bit of milk to bring out the scent of the coffee,” said Hevin, who uses ground coffee from Colombia and Brazil — rather than instant, as is often the case.
The club’s expert crunchers sample another bonbon, this one flavored with Earl Grey tea.
“The bergamot could be a little more pronounced,” one taster said.
“Yes — but that’s risky, bergamot will easily crush any other flavor,” another said.
For Hevin, “getting the right dose between different flavors is particularly difficult, it takes months of work.”
“Most often I will put the accent on the chocolate, above any other flavor,” he said.
However, sometimes, on a smoked tea bonbon for instance, he does the opposite: “I am a big tea fan, so on this one I pulled out the stops so you can really taste it. I wanted something more powerful, more virile.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in