A brief guide to the way we review and rate chocolate …

What kinds of chocolate are reviewed?

We’ll review - and we hope enjoy eating - any dark, ‘bitter’ or ‘bitter sweet’ chocolate that fits our definition of quality fine chocolate. The criteria we use are:

• A high cocoa content (at least 55%, preferably 60% and up)
• All natural ingredients - no additives or ‘E’ numbers
• No artificial flavourings
• Real vanilla - we won’t review any chocolate that contains vanillin, a chemical substitute with a less than perfect taste
• No fat substitutes - cocoa butter is the key to good chocolate because it melts very close to body temperature
• We also prefer that the source and treatment of the beans has been considered

We think chocolate that meets these criteria is worthy of your attention; and we’ll include any chocolate we can find that meets them.

Why do we only review dark, unflavoured chocolate?

We believe that strong dark chocolate gives us the best chance to compare and consider the flavours to be had from the different beans, countries and chocolate manufacturers involved in making fine chocolate. You wouldn’t expect wine tasting to be carried out on wine with mixers! In the same way we’ll get the truest reviews with pure strong chocolate.

This doesn’t mean we don’t like milk chocolate and flavoured chocolate, it’s just with so many chocolates around we had to start somewhere! We’ll be adding special categories for a wider range of chocolate as our site grows.

Chocolate appreciation is a fairly new field, and while the great chocolate houses have employed tasters for years - to achieve a consistent flavour - there is no accepted, standard ‘language’ of chocolate flavours as there is, say, for wine. So really it’s all down to personal opinion and taste, but here are some guidelines on the Seventypercent way of tasting, as used to rate bars on the site.

How does the scoring system work?

Weightings

We score each category from 0 to 10 out of 10, then as different categories have different levels of importance (e.g. flavour is much more important than look), we assign a weighting to each category to achieve a useful overall score. The weightings are arbitrary, but generally produce results that reflect our general opinion of the chocolate we’ve tried.

Aroma

Weighting: 10 out of 100

The sense of smell makes up a large part of the sense of taste, so aroma is a good indication of how a chocolate will taste. All chocolates will have a basic ‘chocolaty’ aroma; try and look past this for other aromas or ‘notes’. Common aromas to be found include forest fruits, tobacco, liquorice, grass, citrus - and even cheese!

Look / snap

Weighting: 5 out of 100

Good chocolates are often redder rather than black (a sign of Criollo beans used rather than the cheaper Forestero, and of better treatment), they will have clean smooth finishes, but have an appealing cracked or marbled look when broken. The grain should be fine, preferably without air bubbles (though these can creep in, in artisan bars.) Good chocolate will break with a clean, pleasing snap - not too brittle and not too soft. This can be judged either by breaking in the hand or the mouth.

Taste

Weighting: 35 out of 100

Flavour of course is paramount, so it gets the highest weighting in our overall score. Look for evolving flavours, initial bursts, slow developers, hidden notes. Generally it is best to let the chocolate slowly melt on the tongue, but sometimes other tones are revealed by munching. Feel free to make comparisons with any flavour you can think of; chocolate flavours are commonly described in terms of forest fruits, citrus, dark tans, tobacco, toffee, caramel, milk, coffee, almonds… the list is endless.

Bad ingredients create bad flavours – artificial vanilla, known as vanillin, is easily detected by its metallic candy-like taste. Poor quality unfermented beans will give rough, unpleasantly bitter flavours – manufacturers usually hide this with too much sugar.

Melt

Weighting: 5 out of 100

One of the reasons chocolate is so pleasant is that cocoa butter melts very close to body temperature (93°F). Good chocolates will vary in their melt, but will never be cloying or sticky in the mouth. For some fine chocolates the melt can be one of the highlights. Melt is a part of the all-important ‘mouth feel’, which is critical to chocolate makers.

Length

Weighting: 15 out of 100

A good chocolate is revealed in its length, the aftertaste that lingers once the chocolate is eaten. Poor quality chocolate quickly turns bitter and metallic in the mouth, so the only way to keep the chocolate experience going is too eat more! Good chocolate can still taste good in the mouth a long time after eating – sometimes 40 minutes or more. Look out for extra evolving flavours in the length, and for any sign of ‘turning’.

Opinion

Weighting: 30 out of 100

A chance to influence the overall score by adding in a general opinion of the chocolate. This is about pleasure, so we add in a score for how much we ‘like’ each chocolate.