T 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