Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Here, in question and answer form, we've provided
a short guide to fine chocolate and our web
site.
Use these links to go straight to answers to these
questions:
What is fine chocolate?
When we refer to 'fine chocolate' we mean good,
dark, strong chocolate made from high quality ingredients.
We call this kind of chocolate 'fine' to distinguish
it from the many candy bar products that are also
called chocolate, even though cocoa may only be
present in a small percentage in the coating of
the bar.
There's no 'industry standard' official term that
means better quality chocolate, but we like to
use 'fine chocolate' to mean any chocolate made
with a good proportion of cocoa solids - 50%
minimum for dark chocolate. We also think a fine
chocolate
should consist only of the basic natural ingredients
of chocolate - cocoa, cocoa
butter, sugar and sometimes real vanilla and
soya lecithin as an emulsifier.
Ideally, a fine chocolate would be one made from
a carefully selected blend of 'flavour' beans and
would be made with care and love by manufactures
concerned about taste and quality.
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Why is your site called seventypercent.com?
We chose seventypercent.com because 70% is a 'classic'
percentage for a dark or bitter chocolate - compared
to some mass market 'dark' chocolate where cocoa
makes up a mere 29% of the bar's weight. We don't
mean
that all good chocolate must be 70% or stronger,
indeed many fine chocolates have percentages in
the 60s, and anything over 50% - 55% would be acceptable.
We try not to be obsessed by percentage - after
all its flavour that counts - but the percentage
of chocolate is usually a good indicator of the
type of chocolate you are buying. Lower percentages
usually mean more cheaper sugar has been added
to mask the flavour of inferior beans.
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Why are there some bars you don't
review?
We want to review any bar with a decent cocoa
content, whether it be from a small artisan producer
or from a corporate giant. We do believe however
that it is unnecessary to adulterate the wonderful
flavours of real chocolate with any artificial
flavourings or preservatives. This is also usually
a good indication of overall quality - if good
(and more expensive) ingredients have been used
the manufacturer won't spoil them by adding artificial
flavourings.
A good example is vanilla. Vanilla compliments
cocoa very well and its use dates back to the
Aztecs. It is not essential to a fine chocolate,
but it is used so often it's hard to separate its
flavour from that of cocoa. Cheaper chocolate is
often made with vanillin, a poor chemical substitute
with a cheap 'candy' like metallic after taste.
So we will only list and review bars that have
a high cocoa content made with all natural ingredients.
Although
we'll try and get as many bars in as we can,
in the last few years more and more single
origin and vintage bars are being made. We're
much more interested in these than the many 'branded'
bars of chocolate made by industrial giants sold
under some one else's name (you may have seen the
phrase 'made especially for us in Belgium' many
times). Chocolate is becoming less anonymous and
we will always look first for bars that are made
with an obvious commitment to quality and an identified
origin.
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What about flavoured bars?
As we all have noticed, chocolate is an ingredient
that combines very well with other foods to produce
many delectable delights. We think this is a fine
idea, and works even better when quality chocolate
is used. Adding flavouring such as coffee or orange
creates interesting combinations, but it does make
it harder to identify and judge the nuances to
be found in the actual chocolate. - who would ever
consider tasting wine when it is mixed with another
drink!
We believe chocolate is best judged when it is
taken pure, with sugar to balance the bitterness
and maybe a little vanilla. As our site grows we
may start to feature some of the more interesting
combinations in our review section.
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What about chocolate, truffles,
bon bons and other things made with chocolate?
Chocolate is almost unique as a food -
you can use it in sweets and dishes as a flavouring,
like you would coffee or raspberries or herbs.
Yet it is a standalone food in its own right AND
is
easily
turned into
a pliable mouldable fluid substance that can be
used
to coat
anything
sweet, as well as nuts, fruits and pastries
besides.
This most versatile of foods is used in the multitude
of delights known as 'chocolates' or 'bon bons',
and we would be foolish to try and list them all!
We want to focus on the essence of the substance
chocolate, so for now this site will concentrate
on reviewing pure chocolate only - though we might
expand our listings later.
We don't want to neglect this area completely,
so we've dedicated a section in our Forum
to Chocolates and Truffles and we intend
to build up a list of the better resources on
the
web for chocolate and bon bons in our links section.
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What about Milk and White chocolate?
You may have already gathered by now that we've
got pretty strong feelings about what goes into
chocolate, and that adding ingredients that mask
the true flavour of chocolate does not sit well
with teasing out the finer nuances of a chocolate.
Adding
milk to chocolate is no exception to this, however
there are some very fine milk chocolates
around that deserve some attention, and should
be considered in a category of their own. So in
the future we will start to add reviews of some
of the better milk chocolates, however at the moment
we have such a backlog of 'plain' chocolate bars
to taste we'll save this for the future!
White chocolate - which is not even legally called
chocolate in some countries - is a different matter
as it
contains only cocoa butter and no cocoa solids.
The cocoa butter has often been treated to neutralise
its flavour and rarely does any discernable trace
of the origin of the cocoa beans come through.
For now we don't plan to review any white chocolate,
but we may make exceptions in the future if we
come across a bar of particular interest.
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Who does your reviews?
Our reviews are carried out by our long-time chocolate
fanatic, Martin
Christy, with help from long-suffering
friends and family. It's always been our plan to
use a panel of reviewers to give a balanced view
on each chocolate, and in
the future we hope to recruit more tasters to our
team - believe it or not reviewing is actually
hard work; it's not always easy to think about
pleasure! Truly serious applicants can email
us at reviewers@seventypercent.com
We also plan to feature guest and celebrity reviewers
in the future, and eventually plan to offer a user
review facility to allow all you fine chocolate
fans to participate.
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Why did you start this site?
To try and justify our obsession with quality
chocolate, and to give us a good excuse to eat
more of it!
But to be more official about it, in recent years
an informal movement has grown up that appreciates
and promotes high quality chocolate around the
world. We see ourselves as providing a key service
to this movement, through the web, and to be
the main resource for anyone interested in chocolate
as
a quality
fine food, not just an ingredient in candy.
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If you also sell chocolate, are
your reviews independent?
We'd have to answer that as yes and no. We make
our chocolate reviews purely on the basis of what
we
experience when we taste that chocolate, and of
how much we enjoy that chocolate. What we stock
in our shop is based on those opinions and we
aim to stock the chocolate we think is some of
the
best
in the world. So we would say that our reviews
are independent of our shop, but our shop is not
independent of the reviews.
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