Seventy% - Topic: How are we doing?

Masur on How are we doing?

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 11:50:38 +0000

The German website you linked to Alex ("Schokolade & Kakao") is a great source of information and frequently updated. It's not dedicated to real chocolate but as you say Alex bits and peaces can be useful. A lot of maintenance is needed on a regular basis for a site like that.

"Porcelana: The Holy Grail of Pure Criollos" (Maricel E. Presilla)

alex_h on How are we doing?

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 09:12:34 +0000

i'd say we are doing very well. look at all the people here and their backgrounds, knowledge and the ground covered!
many thanks to you, martin and the team at 70%.

Hans-Peter Rot on How are we doing?

Wed, 26 May 2004 18:45:25 +0000

Hey Martin, do you have plans to visit the states in the near future? The Chocolate Show in NY is in November, so perhaps that might convince to fly over.

alex_h on How are we doing?

Wed, 26 May 2004 09:11:09 +0000

http://www.theobroma-cacao.de/land/uebersicht.htm

it's all german unfortunately, but maybe you can glean some info nonetheless. if i can be of any help, just say. am always quite busy, but can maybe help a bit here and there.

keep up the great work! and many thanks for all your efforts.

alex_h on How are we doing?

Wed, 26 May 2004 09:07:53 +0000

no worries, martin. no rush. all good things need time and i imagine you have other things on your mind as well. i know i do.

yeah, i noticed bonnat's chuao in the list. went out and bought some straight away :-) do you remember what it replaced in the list? i forgot.

in my profile i have a german web site that lists many a chocolate maker and is grouped according to country. might interest you. just a sec... i'll get you the direkt link...

Martin Christy on How are we doing?

Wed, 26 May 2004 01:36:25 +0000

Alex, I only just found your posts here!

I'm trying to work harder at the reviews and get more done. We have a lot of important bars outstanding (Amedei Chuao, Cluizel Mangaro, all of Scharffenberger's.) When I get through these I'm planning to start updating existing reviews. Partly because I think my palate has got better, because I know a lot more than when I wrote a lot of the early reviews, and because chocolate can change over time and should be judged on what's available now.

The top 10 is from the database based on the scoring, so will update as and when bars score well enough. (You'll notice Bonnat Chuao just got in at number 9 ...)

Also we're planning to change the Chocopaedia to list as many bars and makers as we can, rather than waiting for a review to be finished before listing them. We'll include in this a note of which ones are waiting to be reviewed.

Martin Christy
Editor
http://www.seventypercent.com

Altair on How are we doing?

Mon, 03 May 2004 04:39:56 +0000

I'm very glad I found this site. I'm fairly new to the world of quality dark chocolate, and I'm looking forward to comparing my impressions of the bars I've ordered (The Chocolate Society Organic, Bonnat Puerto Cabello, Michel Cluizel Amer 72% and Los Ancones) with the reviews and other opinions on the forums here.

It's good to know that I'm not alone in starting to take chocolate more seriously. [:)]

alex_h on How are we doing?

Sun, 02 May 2004 02:01:28 +0000

martin,

again: great site! one more question: could you add a list of all new chocolates on the market?

alex_h on How are we doing?

Thu, 29 Apr 2004 16:14:13 +0000

hi martin,

just to say: thank you much! without your site i would never have come across porcelana (amedei and domori). i have known valrhona for years now and it has been time for something new. though ampamakia is hard to beat.
very much information here! nice looking site! great reviews! a great help and source. just one minor thing: how current is the site? and how often do you update your top 10?

cheers,

chocablocka on How are we doing?

Mon, 20 Oct 2003 01:54:58 +0000

Hi,

I just want to say to Martin that this is a wonderful site for someone like me who has had Cad***ys and M**s choc all their life and thought quality was when they put a hazlenut on top!

I have now been shown the light after being introduced to Rococco and L'Artisan du Chocolat by a friend. I now have a mini stockpile of chocs that I am sharing with my family. Oh, and now we now look, smell, and listen to the 'snap' as well as taste the choc instead of just popping it into our mouths.

In previous years, if I knew chocolate could be this nice, I may not have rubbed it all over my wife....but that's another story.. [:D]

Martin Christy on How are we doing?

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:57:45 +0000

I'm not so sure about Rovira, I got a bar to review and had a quick taste and found it a little average, still I have to sit down and try it properly for the review, so maybe I will think more of it then.

Martin Christy
Editor
http://www.seventypercent.com

Hans-Peter Rot on How are we doing?

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:27:18 +0000

Well, he's right about Rovira 70% being an excellent chocolate. I bought one in May and now I regret not buying more because I can't find it anymore. Perhaps the most useful feature of this site (70%) is the forum because it allows people from all over the world to post comments on anything ranging from recipes to reviews. It's hard to find good forums online, and it's nice to see that this one is doing so well. I'm sick of typing in "chocolate forum" online and having African American sex come back as the main results. This site can only get better.

bobvilax2000 on How are we doing?

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 22:04:04 +0000

You will find VERY short reviews at this site. These are mainly just this guy's personal taste. It's not like here at 70% where the reviewer tries to find the good in a bar even if it's not his thing. Plus he doesn't go into the detail that Martin does. I use this mainly as a guidline and take it with a grain of salt.

[url]http://www.mrkland.com/fun/xocoatl/barlist.htm[/url]

Martin Christy on How are we doing?

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 19:54:15 +0000

We don't mind the mention of Chocolate Trading at all, the more the merrier as far as we are concerned - we just want to see fine chocolate as widely available as possible. Chocolate Trading have one of the better retail sites on the web, in fact we even list them on our sources page (www.seventypercent.com/pod/sources.asp). By the way, I know the sources page is still very incomplete, so bear with us on that. The focus of the shop here is a little different in that we are concentrating more and more on origin bars.

Not sure what you mean by the 'no competitors' bit - there are several other fine chocolate information sites on the web, e.g. our friends at http://www.chocophile.com, and of course quite a few retailers, but we do aim to be an information source first, a retailer second. We're not an official body, so there's no guarantee of independence, but then again the growing community on this forum is there to keep us in check!

As we say in the FAQ section of the site (www.seventypercent.com/pod/faq.asp#faq9), 'our reviews are independent of our shop, but our shop is not independent of the reviews'. The shop is there to back up the reviews and to make the chocolate available to those interested. If we could, we'd sell (almost) all of them. In fact some of the new lines we are getting I personally do not rate so highly, but I know some of our regulars are fans of these bars and it's still interesting to try them. It is true that a product we would sell would not receive a bad review - because if we thought it was that bad we would not sell it!

Hope that helps, but by all means keep the debate up - airing these issues can help keep us on our toes. Above all, the community here is the most important part of the site.

Martin Christy
Editor
http://www.seventypercent.com

stevec on How are we doing?

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:41:19 +0000

I find the reviews on this site really useful and haven't found anything like this elsewhere. Has anyone found any other sites that give you imformation on bars. Without reviews and information, buying bars would be a bit of a lucky dip. I find the reviews quite fair and agree that there is a real detailed comparison between bars that is helpful.

Does anyone know of any other good review sites where i might be able to compare reviews and opinions on bars? I guess reviews are always only ever going to be subjective anyway, but i actually believe the reviews on this site to be genuine rather than simpley there to shift product. Anyway, what could be better than reading about some chocolate that you have never heard of or tried before, clicking onto the shop and then having it arrive two days later.

I've used the Chocolate Trading Comapny before i found this site, and i find that they have a good gift range, the sort of thing i might send to my Mom who isn't necessarily into the strong stuff, and they do have little descriptions of the chocolate for sale but they tend to be a bit 'gushy' and 'salesy' rather than being a detailed review/appreciation of the chocolate. I prefer this site because it seems to be run by people who really know and love their chocolate and it has been great to learn more about the subject in the Pod section and Chocopaedia.

So the more information the better i reckon. Keep up the good work and give us more reviews.
When is the article about 'making chocolate' coming?

firepants