After a long incubation period, the new fine chocolate industry association Direct Cacao was finally launched during Chocolate Week in London on 12 October 2012. Less than a week later, many of the founding members were in Amsterdam for the second yearly ‘Origin Chocolate Event‘.

Flemish Belgian chocolatier Geert Vercruysse was also at the event, exhibiting his chocolates in the central hall of the Royal Tropical Institute in (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen). Geert has a reputation for experimentation, using different chocolate from makers from around the world in different combinations in his ganaches.

So it was a moment of serendipity that Geert’s latest collection could almost have been designed as a ‘Direct Cacao’ special, featuring chocolate from members, potential members and other direct sourcing chocolate makers. It was a must, then to take away a box of Geert’s inventive creations to sample.

There’s some free thinking here, with whole, flavoured chocolate bars used to make ganaches – Geert is like a kid in a toy box, but at least he’s playing in the right toy box with the best toys to be found in the chocolatey world. Overall though, the quality of the chocolate used is key and everything else follows effortlessly – good ingredients and good technique equals good chocolates. Easy.

Original Beans Cru Virunga 70% enrobed Grenada 38% Felchlin

Like the Grenada ganaches, Geert has made a special cocoa butter transfer using the Original Beans logo, so there’s really no mistaking whose chocolate is being used. This is direct sourcing and transparency taken to a new level. An interesting milk/dark combination here, with the milk unusually being on the outside.

At first the two origins fight a little, but as the ganache melts the Virunga sweet plum notes come through, with green tea, honey and of course milk popping up because of the milk/dark combination. There’s also a slight floral edge going on, again probably the result of the match of chocolates rather than a distinct note in either. This is rather like matching chocolate with wine or whisky, putting two things together and getting something new that wasn’t in either.

The Grenada Chocolate Company 65% dark-raspberries enrobed Cru Sauvage 68% Felchlin

Tart fresh raspberries paired with the sulphurous rum notes of Grenada 65% couverture. Beautiful chocolatey aftertaste with a burst of raspberry mousse. The raspberries create a great textural effect, somehow both munchably thick but meltingly light at the same time. A very innovative and successful combination.

Pacari 70% Raw enrobed 38% Grenada Felchlin

Something of extremes here, Pacari 70% Raw almost ironically enrobed in a 38% milk chocolate. Very palatable and rounded, with the cream ganache creating a green tea note from the usual Pacari green banana.

Enjoyable, but the cream and milk chocolate probably hide the more interesting notes of Pacari Raw – though some might prefer this softer and more controlled interpretation.

Danta Finca Las Acacias milkganache enrobed Cru Sauvage Bolivia 68% Felchlin

Milk chocolate made in Guatemala from local criollo cacao, mixed up with a dark coating from Felchlin’s famous Beni. Notes of hay and green grass create in a delicate milk ganache that’s not too sweet and that has a clean milk aftertaste.

Original Beans Beni Wild Harvest 68%

Purely Original Beans Beni, both inside and out. Soft toffee notes, blackcurrant jam and hints of coffee, though I suspect closeness in the box to the Grenada dark-raspberries piece has had some influence here. Lightly tannic at the end, but overall very smooth.

Askinosie Del Tambo Ecuador 70% & nibs enrobed Cru Sauvage Bolivia Felchlin

Full peachy dry raisin and wine notes in an exciting ganache that really enhances the flavours of the Del Tambo bar, losing the slightly rougher, drier Askinosie texture but gaining another level of flavour. Geert being Geert has thrown the whole bar in, so you get the nibs as well, though they do tend to go a bit soft inside the ganache.

Akesson’s Black pepper enrobed in Cru Sauvage Bolivia 68% Felchlin

Another ‘whole bar’ experiment, this time with the already flavoured Åkesson’s Organic – Madagascar 75% with Black Pepper. As well as being the source of some of the best cacao in Madagascar and the Pralus-made chocolate he makes from it, Bertil Åkesson is also a master of pepper. His is some of the best you can get and is pretty much all I use in my kitchen. A lot of chocolatiers agree – you’ll often find Åkesson to be the source behind their pepper ganache or bar creations.

Here the ganache softens the initial effect of the pepper, with a creamy fruity notes you’d expect of a Madagascan ganache, then the quality of the pepper coming through softly in a controlled way at the end. Not at all overpowering.

Others in the collection: ‘The Grenada Chocolate Company 82% enrobed in Grenada 38% Felchlin’ – an extreme of Grenadan contrasts with an initial milky hit followed by deep Grenadan fruity rum.

Without knowing it, Geert’s created something special here – a leading edge ganache collection using chocolate from leading edge, directly sourcing chocolate makers. If Direct Cacao and supporters like Geert are a success, this is the future of the fine chocolatier.

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few weeks ago, Seventy% was invited to Nicaragua to give two Slow Chocolate workshops to a group of farmers, producers and other representatives from the cacao world.  We had the great pleasure in meeting Carlos Mann, founder of Momotombo Chocolate and one of the most promising artisan chocolate makers in Central America.

Carlos Mann at the Momotombo factory store

“Our first recipe was a simple roasted peanut chocolate. And, the first one that made me proud was our cashew and aged rum variety,” says Carlos Mann passionately, admitting that making chocolate had not been his ambition in the first place. So, how did his journey begin?

Fresh mango

It started years ago, during his days in California. As a former illustrator, who spent some time in San Francisco working at a video game studio, he quickly became a foodie just by living in the Mission District, searching every corner of the neighbourhood for tasty bites.

The Mission is the old Mexican quarter of the city where almost every Latin American country has some culinary representation. Mexican, Brazilian, Cuban, Peruvian, Salvadorian, Argentinean food and even Nicaraguan food is available and that was something that strongly inspired Carlos. ‘I started cooking some of the food I tasted in the streets and restaurants all around the city. For the first time in my life, I also went to museums, taking in the so-called fine art of the world and getting tuned in to the underground art scene of San Francisco,” he explains.

Food and art. The perfect combination Carlos needed in order to evolve and found Momotombo Chocolates some years later.

The flavours of Nicaraguan food

Making traditional chocolate drinks

The food and smell of his childhood are still fresh in his mind. He recalls what a superb cook his grandmother was and what a sugar freak he was. “I had seven cavities by the time I was six. All from stealing and eating her cakes, pies and sweets.”

What was your favourite dish she prepared for you?

“Farmer’s lasagna (lasagna campesina) made with tortillas instead of pasta, cream infused with green chiles (instead of tomatoes) and shredded white wine chicken. She also cooked amazing soups, such as our speciality soup in Nicaragua, “sopa criolla.”

However, Carlos tells us a story that could be seen as a premonition of Momotombo Chocolate.

In the 1920’s, his great grandfather arrived from Italy to open the first candy and chocolate factory in Nicaragua. “In a typical Nicaraguan drama, he fathered my grandfather Octavio out of wedlock with a native woman.  He did not recognise him formally as his son. So our family did not carry on a relationship with him or his other children. I don’t know much about him, but it’s my understanding that none of his legitimate children had interest in the trade and that his candy business eventually shut down,” he says.

Momotombo fresh chocolates

After years living in California and spending a year in India, Carlos decided to go back to Nicaragua. Perhaps, the craving for his grandmother’s dishes and the link to his Italian ancestry were too intrinsically linked. Intuitively, he needed to continue his culinary journey back in his native country.

“I started having extremely vivid dreams of cacao”

Carlos with Martin Christy – two fellow cacao worshipers attached to a tree

“I think chocolate began to work its effect on me. In late 2004, I was bombarded by images of cacao. Every book I looked at seemed to have references of cacao. Traveling around Nicaragua I came across artisan chocolates that amazed me.  I started having extremely vivid dreams of cacao.

I went to the market, bought myself a Clay Comal (for toasting cacao) and ten pounds of unfermented market cacao. I roasted it and started eating cacao.”

Carlos started writing down many recipes that he wanted to try. With the help of his friend Sonia, he began in earnest.

Evolution from fresh to refined chocolate

His recipes were coming along nicely and he now had some guidelines for an original recipe. It required minimal processing and could be produced in any farm or home in Nicaragua with locally available technology. It had to be fresh and un-tempered. And finally, Carlos needed to use natural local ingredients for flavouring: fruits, nuts, spices, herbs, seeds and flowers.

He would go to the market and stand in line with all the ladies waiting to hire the corn mill to make dough for “tortillas”. When his turn came, he and Sonia washed the mill before running his cacao through it. “That is how we got our cacao liquor for the first 18 months we made chocolate,” he explains.

At that time, he stubbornly decided that if he couldn’t figure out how to make good chocolate with the unfermented cacao from the market, he wouldn’t even bother trying to get hold of -fermented cacao. So for the first year and half, he only made chocolate with unfermented cacao. “I just didn’t worry about it. All our recipes had to be designed to tame that wild flavour.”

After a couple months, he made a chocolate that fit the image of what he had in mind. They called it fresh chocolate. “It is essentially an un-tempered dark milk chocolate. It is full of moisture and so mixes well with fresh ingredients such as fruits,” he adds.

About three years ago, the Nicaragua government recognized it as a new form of chocolate by including it in the national food codex as “Fresh Chocolate” (Chocolate Fresco).

Momotombo fresh chocolate selection

Nowadays, Momotombo produces eight varieties of refined bars, from dark milk to 70% dark chocolate. Some of them contain hand peeled cacao beans, others contain cashew nuts, coconut, sesame seeds, peanuts or dried banana (all endemic products of Nicaragua). The company also produces 70% baking chocolate blocks.

“The flavour of our chocolate bars really change constantly all year round. We produce micro batches and we produce varieties on a whim or according to the seasons. We simply buy what’s interesting or seems appropriate at the time. Sometimes we make bars that are fruity, sometimes nutty, sometimes something else. It’s just like buying good ingredients for a great meal,” explains Carlos.

Nicaraguan cacao has delicate hazelnut, tobacco, rum and coffee notes. Carlos buys directly from farms that have a high overall level of criollo flavours in their cacao as well as from some than have more acidic fruity flavours derived from wilder varietals.

In 2006, he founded Momotombo Chocolate. Its name comes from the volcano that stands on the shore of Lake Managua. Thirteen women work at the chocolate factory that has become an icon of artisan chocolatiers in Nicaragua. Momotombo has three shops in Managua and periodically ships its truffles to Palo Alto and Brooklyn.

Most of Momotombo's team are women

Carlos explains that even though it is a challenge making chocolate in Managua, due to the tropical heat, a limited supply of chocolate equipment and petty corruption, it is still incredibly interesting and exciting making chocolate in Nicaragua. “The ingredients available here are any chef’s dream!”

And what is your dream?

I want to bring back the old, almost-forgotten recipes and techniques of cacao transformation and production used in Nicaragua.

And I want to see my country harness the power of cacao to transform itself into a nation of chocolate makers and expert cacao cultivators. Chocolate is a fitting, proper means of reversing poverty.

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Maricel Presilla shows her James Beard award at her Zafra restaurant

aricel Presilla (born Santiago de Cuba) is truly versatile. As a chef, she has cooked for President Obama at the White House. Her two restaurants, Cucharamama and Zafra, and food store and bakery Ultramarinos, embody the spirit of Latin America in the New York area as a result of her constant exploration for the best Latin American food in its country of origin. (For Maricel, a tapado soup in Rio Blanco, Guatemala, could be as inspiring as a rabbit terrine served near Notre Dame in Paris.)

As a cacao expert, she likes to get her hands dirty by visiting cacao plantations in Central and South America, not only to speak to the farmers, but to examine the pod colours and shape, open them up, bite into the seeds and taste them,  in order to determine the best cacao varietal.

As a writer and medievalist, she has written the ‘New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao with Recipes’ and is about to publish a bible on ‘Gran Cocina Latina’, (WW Norton), where every little region has an extraordinary secret to share.

And if that is not enough, last week, the James Beard Foundation awarded her the Best Chef Mid-Atlantic prize – an Oscar in terms of food – at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

Seventy% had the pleasure and honour of speaking to her.

What was your earliest dream?

To explore the world.

What was your very first job?

Selling lemonade at a Cuban political rally when I was a child, but that lasted only one hour until I was told by a soldier to close shop because private vendors should not be making a profit in a socialist country.

Who was your mentor?

For cooking, I trained with the late Peruvian chef Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, the first to introduce the concept of tapas to the Unites States. He was the long-time assistant of James Beard.

As a graduate student of medieval history, my mentor was the famous medievalist and prolific author Norman F. Cantor. He had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.

For cacao, I learned a lot with Venezuelan cacao agronomist the late Humberto Reyes and his wife Lilian, a cacao pathologist.

Did you ever consider another career apart from being a chef or food writer?

I had been programmed (genetically, I believe) to be a history or literature professor, or an anthropologist. But I would have loved to have been a geographer or an archaeologist.

You have travelled throughout Latin America in search of the best food. Where did you find it?

I always find good food, even in the most improbable places. Mexico has an embarrassment of culinary riches, but Peru and Ecuador, in South America, have wonderful regional cuisines. I am currently smitten with Ecuadorian food and obsessed with Nacional cacao.

As a chocolate expert, what are the main signs of good chocolate?

Maricel Presilla doing research at the San Joaquin farm in the plains of Venezuela in the late 1990′s. Once owned by Chocolates El Rey, the farm no longer exists as it was occupied by squatters with the support of the current government of President Hugo Chávez.

I have always looked for round chocolates that tickle my palate with a variety of sensory experiences, that linger in my mouth for a long time. I appreciate the combination of complementary flavour notes: the lush acidity of dark fruit, the soothing calm of nuts, the complex sweetness of brown loaf sugar, and the subtle jolt of spice.

But I am learning to appreciate more dominant single notes of wood and herbs, or the assertive floral aromas that are characteristic of some rare Ecuadorian cacaos with strong Nacional blood.

What varietal flavours make a perfect chocolate?

I have always been partial to nutty Venezuelan criollos like Porcelana or Guasare or more complex trinitarios with a strong criollo blood and round dark fruit from places like Barlovento, Cuyagua or Chuao, but now my palate is more refined and I appreciate the inherent quality of other Latin American cacaos.

I now enjoy the black olive notes of a Nicaraguan cacao (as in Duffy’s  Nicaragua Nicaliso) or the deeply herbal nature of a Pacari Raw Ecuadorian cacao from Los Ríos.

Who would you invite to your ideal dinner party?

Twelve is the magic number of guests for me because they will fit snugly around my 18^th century Filipino table.

I would invite people of all ages (dead or alive) and from different walks of life to keep the conversation lively. I would invite James Beard for obvious reasons. Anton Mosimann, a refined Swiss chef with a restaurant in London (a true gourmand who enjoys my food and my restaurants), Prince Charles (because I like the way he thinks and writes about organic food and sustainability), and Oliver Sacks, a famous neuroscientist who adores Latin American food. Hoping that he would play the saxophone after dinner, I would ask my Cuban friend, Paquito de Rivera, a fantastic jazz musician, to join us.

Of course, I would include some of my chocolate friends. Santiago Peralta of Pacari Chocolate is one of the best dining companions I know.

Art Pollard of Amano Chocolate would fly from Utah to New Jersey to eat anything I cook for him and would bring his delicious chocolates.

Paul A Young would sit by my side and keep me entertained telling me about his latest flavour experiments, and Martin Christy, who has a discriminating palate, would be at the head of the table talking about his latest chocolate and cacao adventures. He would be pleased with the certainty that I would go out of my way to prepare special vegetarian Latin American dishes just for him.

Susana Cárdenas Overstall and Monica Meschini would also be at the table. Susana will cheer when I serve roasted ripe plantain with a peanut condiment from her home region, and Monica, who is very choosy and opinionated, will test my culinary abilities and keep my use of cilantro to a discreet minimum.

What would you serve?

I would start with my Caribbean squash soup laced with cacao and a small torchon of foie gras (for the non-vegetarians) and a spoonful of Ecuadorian mantequilla blanca (a type of crème fraîche) from Manabí.

I will follow with my Cuban-style fresh corn polenta topped with shrimp in vanilla and chipotle sauce and a touch of chocolate and cacao.

As a main course, it would be a contest. My Cuban-style roast pork with a side of mote (Ecuadorian hominy) and roasted oca, an Andean tuber, and rice and vegetarian Cuban black beans. This is always a hit. But I also enjoy a pan-roasted breast of duck with crispy skin, thinly sliced and served over a tamarillo (tree tomato) mole sauce laced with chocolate flavored with Andean mortiño and a side of Manabí-style roasted ripe plantain with the peanut condiment called salprieta.

For dessert, expect something creamy and delicious made with chocolate, but also a tasting of at least a dozen chocolates made with Latin American cacaos paired with special after dinner drinks.

What is your biggest extravagance?

Buying a very expensive and huge Spanish Renaissance wooden door (from a palace no less) in New York and shipping it to my house in Spain and paying a special import sales tax for it.

What is your greatest disappointment?

Not to be able to help the cacao farmers of Cuba’s Jauco region, including my own family. While I have been able to commercialise the cacao of small farms in countries like Venezuela, the state-controlled cacao industry of Cuba does not allow anyone to deal directly with Cuban farmers.

And your greatest achievement?

Three milestones come to mind. My cacao and chocolate books The New Taste of Chocolate for Ten Speed Press (2001 and 2009), the chocolate bars I was able to create with the late Robert Steinberg with cacao from my favorite farm in Venezuela, and my most recent award for Outstanding Best-Chef Mid-Atlantic given to me by the prestigious James Beard Foundation on May 7, 2012.

Maricel Presilla is the first Latin American woman and the third woman in history to win this award. She is a member of the Grand Jury for the International Chocolate Awards taking place in London from 28 May – 3 June.

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The International Chocolate Awards are an independent organisation, partnering with fine chocolate experts and organisations in different countries with independent verification and oversight.

The first year’s Awards will run in 2012 in Italy, the UK and the USA with other countries in progress. The first Grand Final will be held in Chocolate Week, 8-14 October, in the London. In future years the final will rotate around different locations.

The International Chocolate Awards are completely independent of any other fine chocolate organisation, but will work with associations and other partners in each particpating country. The Awards are overseen by an International Advisory Committee, an Entrants committee and the judging is overseen by an independent, international Grand Jury. For full details and our committment to fairness and transparency, see the awards website at www.internationalchocolateawards.com.

European Semi-final, London, 28 May 2012

The European Semi-final of the International Chocolate Awards will take place 28 May – 1 June in London. Judging will be in all categories, including origin and plain dark chocolate bars.

If you are a chocolate company, details of how to enter are at www.internationalchocolateawards.com/entry-forms.

The Americas Semi-final will be held in New York in September. Details of the dates and how to enter for US, Canadian, Latin American and Caribbean companies will be available soon.

Italian National Competitions – results

On 14 April, Seventy% and Chocolate Week packed their suitcases and took off for Tuscany to organise the Italian National Chocolate Awards with Italian chocolate expert, Monica Meschini.

Over 100 chocolate products were entered from all over Italy, with judges from Florence, Milan, Rome and London gathering in the Medici’s villa in Artimino for a non-stop contest lasting three days.

Some of the Judging team at Artimino

The winners of 12 categories were announced last week. Highlights included a gold for ‘Lattesal’ from Domori and Slitti’s ‘Riccosa’ , which took Gold in milk chocolate spreads.

The winners will compete alongside the best of the European and Americas semi-finals (London, May 2012 & New York, Sept 2012). Tthe Grand Final will take place during Chocolate Week in London, 8-14 October.

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Bonnat's chocolate bar from 1903

hat prompted this article was our visit to the Salon du Chocolat in Paris last October. The key players of the chocolate world were there – intriguing characters – those we only know through their creations. All of a sudden, they were in front of us, sharing their chocolates and their stories.  They seemed to be in high demand by a long queue of people wishing to speak to them. Murmurings of ‘Excusez-Moi Monsieur’ were repeated every two minutes. We were only left with the joy of tasting some delightful mango ganaches but we had a whole list of unanswered questions.

As we left the Salon, we were beguiled to find out who these chocolate pioneers were –  the ones that put French chocolate on the world map. The Lower Rhone happens to be the region where tradition and innovation in fine chocolate started a chocolate revolution.  Below are a few stories on the region’s chocolatiers.

‘Bonnat – France’s legendary chocolatier’

It is a big day for Stéphane Bonnat. He has been running around his chocolate factory manically as he prepares to travel to Japan and Bangkok in few days time. “Chocolate season begins now and I am taking a small roasting machine from the 1920’s with me to demonstrate how to conch chocolate,” he says.

Stéphane Bonnat at his chocolate factory in Voiron

Nevertheless, the international side of the business is also booming.  The demand for Bonnat’s respected bean-to-bar products is as strong as ever, with the original Bonnat shop in Voiron having become something of a site of pilgrimage for fans of fine chocolate.

How did all begin? His great grandfather, Felix Bonnat, founded the chocolate factory in 1884.  As Voiron is located on what was one of the principal trading roads to Switzerland, at a time when Lindt was revolutionizing the chocolate industry, the region became a magnet for all types of business related to cacao. “The response was an economic one; it is not in vain that four of the fine-artisan French chocolate businesses still remain in the Lower Rhone even now,” he explains.

Funnily enough, there is an older theory that justifies the reason why chocolatiers established themselves in the South of France. “In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the French Crown permitted Iberian Jews, fleeing religious persecution in Spain and Portugal, to settle in this part of France. They brought both cacao and the craft of making chocolate to the region,” explains Susan Terrio, author of the book Crafting the Culture and History of French Chocolate.

At the beginning of the 1900’s, the Bonnat chocolaterie had won its reputation. Local customers went crazy for the beautiful hand-made bonbons, orange krugetes that are still today’s bestsellers and pralines – elaborated with cacao from Cuba, Ecuador and from the farms of the Franceschi family in Venezuela.

Selection of bonbons and pralines from Bonnat chocolaterie from the early 1900's

The fact that they have had access to fine cacao from different parts of the world, encouraged Stephane Bonnat’s great-grandfather to produce the first box of single origin when nobody else even thought about it. “In 1984, we expanded our range of single origin, took them to the Salon du Chocolat in Paris and it was a revolution!” Nowadays, Bonnat chocolate bars come from the finest cacao plantations in 42 regions of the world.

Where do you see the future of cacao and chocolate? “The future depends on quality and sustainability. Consumers are demanding high quality chocolate and the difficult thing is maintaining this quality. It is important to visit the plantations, encourage the farmers to grow fine cacao and pay better prices for it. If we don’t reassure farmers’ labour, they will prefer working in another industry and abandon the cacao plantations.[  In countries like Dominican Republic, they prefer to work in tourism rather than in cacao. We don’t want to be left without fine flavour cacao,” concludes Stephane.

‘Morin – Four generation of tradition’

Chocolaterie A. Morin's orchard in Donziere

“I was a naughty boy, not allowed to be in the factory without my father’s supervision. It was late at night and I was by myself, standing on a stool, putting chocolate into boxes. I was five years old, a small boy and I when I had finished, I could not get down from the stool! My father came to find me and saw me crying,” remembers Franck Morin from Chocolaterie A. Morin in Donzere, as he recalls his first chocolate memories, with a big grin on his face.

His great grandfather, Gustave Morin, started working for the chocolate factory at the monastery of Aiguebelle in 1884. At that time, cacao beans arrived from Latin America, to the port of Marseille and were then transported by train straight to Donzere.

The making of pistachio chocolate bonbons by A.Morin Chocolaterie

By the 1920’s, Gustave had become one of the most prominent confectionary experts until WWII broke out, changing the spectrum of the artisan chocolate world. “There was not enough cacao and sugar available to produce chocolate and the few bonbons we made were sent to the German army”, explains Franck.

The factory closed down, moved to Morocco and Gustavo Morin was meant to move with it. He was fully trained and ready to go, but for family reasons he couldn’t.  He decided to open up his own business but due to the instability after the war, he could not cope and decided to quit.

“After the war, intensified competition from industrial manufacturers provoked the disappearance of most small-scale chocolatiers as well as the subsequent restructuring of the craft,” explains Terrio – and that is exactly what happened to Morin.

Franck Morin visits a cacao farm in Central America

In 1958, his grandfather decided to open the chocolate business again. At that stage, his father learnt the art of making pralines and bonbons with delicious almonds, hazelnuts, morello cherries, fresh from the company’s own orchard.  The tradition continued and now Franck is creating single origin bars with fine cacao from Peru, Madagascar, Vietnam, Venezuela, Sao Tome, among other countries.

“We don’t want to make a perfect chocolate, we want to keep having the opportunity of making chocolate with the finest cacao beans in the best possible way,” says Franck.

‘Pralus – A childhood passion’

François Pralus’ love of chocolate began at a very early age, in an environment rich with tradition, craft and exposure to the finest ingredients. In 1955 his father had invented the speciality for which he became famous, the ‘praluline’ – a much copied brioche with praline, made with toasted pink sugar coated almonds and hazelnuts. Auguste won many awards for his work, achieving national acclaim.

As François grew up he trained to follow in his father’s footsteps, a practice still common in France and Italy but almost lost in the English-speaking world.

Francois Pralus outside his shop in Roanne

From Brazil to Paris, François worked in renowned restaurants and undertook an internship at the chocolate department of the Ecole Lenôtre in Paris. Perhaps most significantly though was the time he apprenticed with his first master, the legendary chocolate maker Maurice Bernachon in Lyon – godfather of the modern chocolate movement in France.

Inspired by this great artisanal patissier chocolate maker, when François returned to Roanne after his travels he began to contemplate the creation of his own chocolate, from the bean. This would mean a return to the tradition of patisseries before industrialisation, where making chocolate was a normal part of their business.

After taking over the running of Pralus in 1988, it didn’t take long for François to set up his ‘chocolate laboratory’ in 1991. Soon his travels began again, this time to source beans for Pralus’ new chocolate making venture to produce a rare fine chocolate from local African beans and then on to Madagascar, Brazil, Indonesia – to name just a few.

In Madagascar Pralus have taken this idea a step further. On the island of Nossy-Bé, to the North West of the Madagascan main island, sixteen hectares of land have become the home of the first Pralus owned plantation.

With a staff of forty-four, and now producing beans for three different types of Pralus’ Madagascar chocolate, the plantation has a growing reputation and has provided the beans for some of Pralus’ best chocolate. “I do everything myself”, François Pralus explains, “instead of being supplied by specialist suppliers.”

Our trip to the Lower Rhone ends here. Unfortunately, we could not get to historical Lyon, a Unesco World Heritage site and home of Maurice Bernachon – one of the most famous names in French chocolate. We will leave that to our next quest.

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Overlooking the ruins of Copan and surrounding landscape

t was early in the morning when we went to Copan to visit Don José Arita´s Mayan Red cacao plantation. Most of us had arrived in San Pedro Sula the night before, after long-haul journeys, crossing the Atlantic, the United States and the Latin American continent.

For some, such as Art Pollard of Amano, Gary Guittard of E. Guittard Chocolate and Franck Morin of Morin Chocolate, maybe this expedition was part of a normal cacao routine, after so many years in the search of fine cacao in Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru. For others, this was the first encounter with the soul of a cacao plantation. But for most of us, it was the very first time that we stepped into a Mayan Red cacao plantation, in the valleys surrounding Copan, Honduras.

Mayan Red cacao pods

Red eyes and sleep depravation were the general feelings of the day, but not for Don José Arita. There he was, with a fresh mind just like an open cacao pod, his eyes emanating wisdom, his smile depicting a likeable shyness. His loyal dog, followed his every step.  He also looked ageless. Perhaps the pure air, the simple life in the countryside, unpolluted by blackberries and stress, along with the Mayan energy had become his elixir of youth.

While Frank Homann and Dr Zoe Papalexandratou of Xoco Fine Cocoa explained us their ambitious vision – to be the first company in the world to embark on a large-scale reproduction that produce fine flavour cacao – I walked alongside Don José.

Along with his brother, he used to grow coffee, beans, pineapple and corn, but he decided to switch to cacao. He expresses that it is more profitable and beneficial for his land. “Cacao suffers from less diseases and requires less human labour,” he continues.

All of a sudden, I felt the urge to open a shining pod in order to taste the gloopy pulp that covers the cacao beans. The taste felt like an explosion of fruity notes and I immediately understood why British chocolatier, Duffy Sheardown, had selected these cacao beans to create his delicious chocolate bars available in the UK.

“What about pesticides?” I inquire. “We don’t use them. If we were to use them, they would kill off the beneficial insects which help the tree to grow”, says Don José.

Don José Arita at his cacao farm

He believes that working on this project with Xoco gives him more stability for the future. He explains that the fact that they have an on-going contract to grow Mayan Red cacao guarantees that his cacao will be bought. The price is fixed at 50% more than the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) price. Most farmers, even on Fair Trade schemes, receive much less than the NYSE price. At the moment, there are 500 farmers working on this project in Honduras. And, Xoco has already expanded to Nicaragua and is about to start a new project in Guatemala.

In Central America, these types of trees are almost extinct and only encountered in very limited quantities on remote and isolated farms. Frank Homann expresses that they have segmented the tree types and carefully tested their beans for the superior flavour attributes used by manufacturers to make award-winning gourmet chocolate.

The trees that meet Xoco’s painstaking selection criteria are then naturally reproduced by grafting in large nurseries, in the three countries were Xoco operates.

The next day, we visited the nursery near San Pedro Sula to witness the tedious but dedicated job carried out mainly by women.

 In Guatemala

Frank Homann shows visitors Xoco nursey in Izabal, Guatemala

We then had the opportunity to visit another cacao grafting operation at a nursery in the region of Izabal, Guatemala.

For chocolate experts like Martin Christy, the main concern is that the world of fine cacao will disappear. But according to Frank, “with this project and such a vast volume of fine Mayan Red trees, the world of fine chocolate will change.”

We cross the Rio Dulce river and we are simply mesmerised by the spectacular scenery.  The river takes you to Livingston in one direction and to Lake Izabal in the other. Our Mayan journey continues and it is impossible not to admire the beauty of the elegant women parading through the local market.

Driving towards the ancient ruins of Tikal, the conversation on the topic of fine cacao flows inspirationally. “It is good to see how this project is bringing cacao to areas where it has practically disappeared,” says writer, Maricel Presilla.

As I gaze dreamily at the landscape, I marvel at the fact that the lives of farmers, like Don José Arita, can be transformed by growing Mayan Red cacao trees.

Monica Meschini, Alex Rast, Lourdes Delgado, amongst others, visiting the Mayan Red plantations in Honduras

The post A Mayan Odyssey appeared first on Seventy%.

N

ew for 2012, an inspiring season of tasting events exploring the many flavour notes of fine chocolate. Each month we pick a classic flavour group, like citrus, spice or forest fruits and explore the flavours and nuances of each group in detail.

The Marylebone Pub

In the relaxed comfort of a quiet room in The Marylebone pub, London, we take you through a chocolate tasting and flavour experience.

With a little history, sample flavours in their natural and try special treats and cover all the flavour nuances while enlivening and educating the palate.

We’ll start each tasting with a specially flavoured hot chocolate, with an optional dash of rum or liquor for those seeking an extra hit, and finish off with a specially created cocktail, in both alcoholic and ‘virgin’ variations.

Chocolate Flavours is both fun and educational and makes a great early evening treat for couples, connoisseurs or the merely indulgent.

Dates and tickets

Chocolate Flavours events take place on the 3rd or 4th Tuesday of everything month at The Marylebone Pub, London. Book your tickets through PayPal – no account needed, all major cards accepted. Tickets are sold in the name of our holding company, Micrograde.com Ltd. Please print out your pay Pal receipt as your ticket.

Gift certificate

Forest

Tropical

Spice

Citrus

Floral

Info

The Marylebone
93 Marylebone High Street
London
W1U 4RE
UK
www.themarylebonelondon.com

Find on Google Maps

For enquiries email us at events@seventypercent.com or call 0870 446 0770.

The post ‘Chocolate Flavours’ – monthly flavour journeys appeared first on Seventy%.

Damian Allsop

evolutionary. Bold. Humble. Damian Allsop still remembers the first chocolate ganache he made with his mentor Robert Mey in 1986. “I was an apprentice at the Hyatt Carlton Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge (now Jumeirah).

Robert trained me in classic French pastry. It was very modern for its time and was the place to be if you were a pastry chef”, explains Damian.

The British chocolate scene has changed dramatically since then. Maybe it doesn’t quite have the same quantity of chocolatiers found in France but it has become a pioneer of revolutionary and constantly evolving ideas.

After years of specialised training and work, Damian now belongs to a generation of British avant-garde chocolatiers, whose creations are sold at Michelin-starred restaurants across the UK and exquisite stores such as Liberty of London and Le Fromagerie. His contribution to this cutting-edge group is a formula of chocolate water ganache.

cH2Ocolate

So, how did this happen? “Whilst working for Giorgio Locatelli, I was invited to Amedei and I’d never tasted this chocolate before. So I was amazed at the complexity and flavour of the Chuao and when I got home, I made a mousse with it and was shocked that it didn’t taste the same as the raw chocolate. I realized that the flavour of the cream and egg yolks was altering the taste of the chocolate. I needed to use a non-flavoured liquid…water”, elaborates Damian.

“Who would have thought that by removing the cream and butter from the classic ganache recipe and replacing it with locally sourced spring water, you could taste the exact flavour of the chocolate used. The flavour delivery is more exciting and intense, the mouth-feel is smooth and leaves a clean, fresh sensation. The big difference here is that everyone uses cream as their liquid. I use spring water”, continues Damian.

Pure flavour

Ana Hernandez Piferrer (right) introducing the 2011 Pure Collection

His latest creation is the Pure Collection, a celebration of some of the best-known chocolate varieties in the world, launched in October. Valrhona, Pacari, Amano and Original Beans are part of this. “It is a complete vanity project. It is a loss-maker but I love it so much I have to do it”, he says.

He needed to demonstrate the amazing and varied characters that dark chocolate can give. To achieve this, the chocolates needed to be worked together.

A key input to his success comes as a result of working together with partner Ana Hernandez Piferre as a team. “For the last 5 years, 7 days a week, we have been making chocolates in our kitchen in Kent, designing boxes, creating a concept. Without her, none of this would be possible!”

So, was it Damian Allsop’s dream to become a master chocolatier? I doubt it. He believes he is only a pastry chef, who is “bloody good” at making chocolates.

Martin Christy reviews the Pure Collection, 2011

Damian Allsop Pure Collection 2011

With the second Damian Allsop Pure collection, we see Damian branching out from the previous Valrhona only offering.

This year, we have a mix of some of established and ‘new wave’ chocolate makers, plus Original Beans, whose chocolate is made for them by Swiss couverture producer Felchlin. Original Beans source their own cacao though and theirs is some of the best Felchlin-made chocolate.

Tasting the Pure collection is almost a must for connoisseurs wishing to educate their palate. Here we find an extended and fuller expression of the flavour notes of each chocolate, a sensory experience that compliments and enhances the tasting of the actual chocolate.

Because of this, these reviews are almost like straight chocolate bar reviews, rather than the regular filled chocolate approach. We’re also really getting into the nuances of batch variation here, a problem for consistency for those expecting the same flavour each time, but surely part of the real origin experience.

Pacari – Raw 70%

Pacari Raw 70% ganache

Here the water ganache brings out a surprising strong vinegar note, hints perhaps of the very minimal fermentation that goes on in Pacari Raw (which only takes place while the pulp and beans from open pods are carried to the drying centre.) There’s no roasting at all here though, so every detail of the cacao is exposed – the slightest hint of mould or poor drying would show up instantly.

On the tongue we get a full burst of green cacao flavour. If you’ve been to a cacao farm or collection centre, you’ll recognise at once the fresh flavours of good drying cacao – a certain wild, farmey flavour that suggests the pungent smell of cacao fermentation near by. If you haven’t been lucky enough to make such a visit yet, this is a pretty good substitute for the experience.

Following this comes a certain ‘biscuity-ness’, then finishing with hints of the famous but elusive Nacional ‘floral’ flavour, with a backbone of a little ginger, ending on something I can only describe as ‘egg yolk’ – but green plantain would also be pretty close. Lightly tannic at the end, but in a very pleasant ‘green tea’ way.

Original Beans – Piura

This year’s batch of Piura bars are distinctively more on the acid side than we saw in last year’s excellent fruity balance. In the ganache, the first hit on the tongue is fruity toffee, moving to the slight bitterness of grapefruit, followed by a good chocolatey base. The after taste is clean fruit though, moving closer to the plum/citrus we expect from the origin.

Amano – Morobe

Amano Morobe

A challenging origin from Amano, really exploring the boundaries of flavour. Damian’s ganache strinkingly brings out the intense grapefruit/pineapple zing, while moderating the leather/smoke note that’s almost inevitable with Papua New Guinean cacao.

The balance here is even better than in the straight chocolate, with the two fruit/leather extremes running side by side. You might also find cherry, raisin and cheesy hints – signs perhaps of imperfect fermentation, but part of an interesting, complex whole. Would sit very nicely alongside a nicely aged Italian grappa.

Original Beans – Virunga

Viruga ganache

Distinctive smell of butter, which comes about from the non-fruity African genetics and Felchlin’s distinctive chocolat style. Flavour is full toffee, raisin, rum, a little earthiness and a touch bitter. Could be buttered prunes, if such an idea existed. End is tannic, but this is balanced by the butter and dark fruits, leaving an effect like light lemon.

As a chocolate, Virunga has really come on since the first production, which was interesting rather than eye-catching. Here Damian brings out the full subtleties, showing the potential of this surprising African origin.

Valrhona – Manjari 68%

A boosted percentage version of Valrhona’s classic Madagascar. As we saw in Pacari Raw, Damian’s water-based technique can tend to emphasise the acid notes in a chocolate. Madagascan’s have a flavour profile that is naturally towards fruity/citrus/acid, with Manjari famous for it’s orange/cherry notes.

The water ganache has moved the flavour across to raspberry balsamic, losing a little lightness in the process. I normally lean towards higher percentages, but in this case the extra sweetness of the standard 64% Manjari might have helped to keep the balance more central. A nice eat, but perhaps the least interesting of the collection.

Amano Madagascar 70%

Amano Madagascar ganache

A little stronger than the 68% of Manjari, but we can instantly see the lighter Amano roast by the lighter colour. (The cacao genetics in both these Madagascan’s will be more or less the same, considering the limited number of sources of Madagascan criollo).

Given the flavour expression that follows, the aroma is surprisingly light, with very light raisin and a touch of grass.

On the tongue we get fudge, then cream, cream, cream, fruit ginger pudding, a raspberry coulis zing, finishing with liquorice and a toffee length. It’s really hard to keep up with the evolving flavour journey. Sublime.

A nerds delight

Damian’s achieved something remarkable here. His presence in the collection is almost invisible, transparently delivering flavour and enhancing the sensory experience and profile of each. Many have said it, but the star here really is the chocolate.

If nothing else, ‘Pure collection’ is a must for budding and accomplished connoisseurs as an educational palate experience. Ideally, Damian would make a collection containing all known origin bars, just as a review aid. Nerds aside, its’s also a very pleasurable boxed set and a great Christmas gift. Hard to recommend it highly enough.

Info

Price: £18.95 – buy online direct from Damian here.

Website: www.damianallsop.co.uk

The post Damian Allsop – Water In The Equation appeared first on Seventy%.

Martin Christy ready to taste a 70% chocolate bar

Martin Christy, Sevent%’s editor and founder, is one of the world’s leading bean-to-bar chocolate experts. Ten years ago, a music producer trained in IT, Martin founded the one of the first websites to specialise in fine chocolate. Because of his obsession with fine chocolate, he began a journey that took him to cacao-growing countries, put him in touch with fine chocolate makers and led him to an exploration of the connections between these worlds. He tells his story to Susana Cárdenas Overstall.

Beginnings

grew up eating bad English chocolate”, says Martin Christy as we are about to have a coffee on Upper Street in Islington. Martin orders a cappuccino and he asks the waiter not to add chocolate powder on the top, as he takes a bar of dark chocolate from his bag and stirs in a few flakes to his coffee himself. Martin Christy was born at home in Slough, Berkshire, just under the famous chimney of the Horlicks factory. Maybe the morning he was born, the wind was blowing in the right direction and he was caught by the smell of chocolate, as the Mars factory lay just half a mile away from his parent’s house. Perhaps this had a strong effect on him. He grew up though in the North of Birmingham, an area he calls ‘Cadbury country’.

We are about to have a long conversation on how he got involved in this passionate world of chocolate. He explains that at some point in his life, he became vegetarian and more interested in the sourcing of food and what was behind it.

Discovering Guanaja

One day, while he was foodie shopping at Harrods’ confectionery department, he discovered French chocolate maker Valrhona. “I was reading the package and I said to myself :I have to try this”. The first bar he bought was Guanaja, which was a blend of cacao from Caribbean Criollo named after the first encounter Europeans had with cacao. Valrhona did not choose the name for the cacao source, they chose it for the story. Guanja was one of the Valrhona “Grand Cru” chocolates, created in 1987 (followed by Caraïbe with cacao from Dominican Republic and Manjari, from Madagascar). These were first made only as couverture cooking chocolate, but around 1991 were launched to the public as eating bars. Before this, there were no origin bars in the UK and the concept of the “Grand Cru” origin chocolate bar simply did not exist. (It took this long for someone to realise that this chocolate was far better than anything else.)

This was all very new for Martin.

Not long after this, he discovered some single origin bars which Bonnat had been making since 1910. Later, he discovered Michael Cluizel and then Rococo, which was the only good quality chocolatier in London. “It was a big deal to go to King’s Road and try all the different flavours in little sample trays”.

A world of cacao and chocolate

In 1999, Martin started a web design consultancy with some friends, but when the dot-com bubble burst, work was scarce and the company closed down. During this time, he was getting more and more into dark chocolate. He became obsessed with it and decided to build Seventypercent.com as a test website. He designed the website as an extension of his hobby without knowing that it would be like opening a Pandora’s chocolate box.

He started reviewing bars: Guanajo, Michel Cluizel, Lindt 70% and that was almost it. It was difficult to find new bars to review. All of a sudden, people started sending him chocolate to review. He had a forum where aficionados could discuss dark chocolate.

The New Taste of Chocolate

Maricel Presilla in Peru

An epiphanal moment for him came in 2003, when he was reading the first edition of American chef, Maricel Presilla’s book “New Taste of Chocolate”. Then, he fully understood what vast and complicated subjects chocolate and cacao were. It was time to travel to the source.

Cuban-American writer Maricel Presilla and a friend of Martin’s recalls, “Martin and I were left alone on a bumpy three-hour trip to Alto el Sol in Peru to see suspected Amazonian cacao which ended up being CCN-51. Sharing the back of a pickup truck, clinging onto each other for dear life, while trying to take pictures of our surroundings, I felt I had found someone I could trust, respect and whose friendship I could enjoy. He has a wicked, understated sense of humour that made me laugh – the yin to my “in-your-face” Caribbean yan – and he was so solemnly serious about cacao and high quality chocolate. This is a man after my own heart, I said to myself”.

Martin began to realise that there is a big gap between consumers and growers, that nobody – including himself – really understood both worlds: the worlds of cacao and chocolate. For a long time, most Europeans and Americans who worked with chocolate had no idea about its origin and the taste of cacao in the farm. So Seventy% started playing a crucial role in connecting people and helping consumers better understand the difference between fine chocolate, made of fine cacao, and commercial chocolate made from bulk cocoa.

“Through his website he has done an amazing job of opening up the world of fine chocolate to consumers, helping its growth and development. He has also done wonders for introducing small chocolate makers to the UK”, says London chocolatier William Curley.

Cacao futures

It seems that in ten years, many people have discovered the wonderful complexity of the cacao and its origins. Many have become chocolatiers, chocolate makers or enthusiasts. You can really see how people have developed a small interest into a passion.

Is this the reason why chocolate is so fascinating? I ask. “Chocolate has this dual nature, you can flavour your pudding with chocolate or cook with chocolate, you can also sculpt a person, build a cathedral or create a tribute Berlin Wall out of chocolate. As a food, chocolate is very unusual and enchanting and now this world of chocolate is becoming as complex and as enchanting as fine wine”.

Recovery and discovery

Martin Christy sampling liquor in Piura, Peru

According to Frank Homann, founder of Xoco Gourmet, Martin´s contribution to the chocolate world is significant. “He has managed to organize and communicate the aspects of quality in high end dark chocolate. He is probably the only one to do a comprehensive job at that. Seventy% is clear and easy to use. A clear message is what the chocolate world needs in order to move forward in terms of quality. In this way, Martin is one of the early pioneers in the industry, one of those few who make a difference”.”Seventy% has focused on the sensorial journey. It is obvious that Martin has a passion. He cannot help it, and it becomes very easy to work with him because he is simply so very curious about the chocolate he has in front of him. “As a true “foodie” he enjoys it and can taste things we normal beings can only learn from”, says Frank.

Martin tells me “The really exciting thing is the journey of rediscovery that many chocolate makers are embarking on. Now with DNA evidence, we have the opportunity to discover tastes that no one has ever experienced before. We are reaching back to the original Mayan and Aztec cacao, back to days when refined, chocolate as we know it, did not exist. But now with our artisanal industrial techniques, we are creating a completely new world of flavour.”

“What I expected was going to be an innocent continuation of my love for chocolate into just something a little more sophisticated, actually turned into the beginning of a journey into this fantastic, complex and never ending world”, concludes Martin.

The post The passion behind Seventy% appeared first on Seventy%.

Trinitario cacao, Ecuador

he City of London. Round the corner from the Bank of England lies a tempting chocolatier. The board outside the shop says that “a chocolate business has existed in this place for 300 years”, going back to a time when chocolate was considered an elixir, an exotic beverage brought back from the Americas. “The first chance for the Spanish court to sample chocolate as drunk by the New World natives came with a delegation of Kekchi Maya Indians who arrived in 1544 bearing the sort of rich gifts they have given to their own overloads (…including 2,000 quetzal feathers and containers of beaten chocolate).

It is a grey, rainy day and the shadows of the buildings increase the darkness further. Strangely, the aroma of the chocolate from the shop takes me back to my childhood twenty years ago, to a bright, humid day in the tropics of South America. I give in to temptation and buy a box of chocolates: 15 truffles made out of fine cacao from Madagascar, Venezuela and Ecuador, a little something to indulge my friends later that night. And, while I select my chocolate variety, my memory drifts back to my father’s cacao Arriba Nacional plantation on his farm in Manabí, Ecuador.

The shop salesman reminds me that there are four more options to choose from before he is to serve a long queue of chocolate addicts patiently waiting in line for their fix. No one is able to resist the vast range of chocolate and very few customers could imagine the fascinatingly complex journey or transformation of a naïve cacao bean into an extravagant salt and caramel truffle.

Counter display at Paul A Young's Camden Passage shop

A few blocks away from St Paul’s Cathedral, a project officer at the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), Moisés Gómez, invites me for a coffee. It would be unthinkable for anyone belonging to the chocolate world to miss an opportunity to discuss this topic.

An old myth is that there are only three different types of cacao beans which are used in chocolate production: the “noble” Criollo, the common Forastero and a hybrid between the two, the Trinitario”.

Nowadays, according to a research called “Geographic and Genetic Population Differentiation of the Amazonian Chocolate Tree” made by Motamayor, Loor, Lachenaud, Da Silva, there are more than 10 different varieties of cacao: Amelonado, Contamama, Criollo, Curaray, Guiana, Iquitos, Maranon, Nacional, Nanay and Purus. Criollo was the predominant cocoa bean two hundred years ago but it became scarce after this, mainly because of the lack of resistance of this variety towards diseases. In fact, this was the variety of cacao that Europeans fell in love with. Perhaps, they felt mesmerized by the distinctive, complex taste, which can include flavours notes of nuts, cream, cherry and citrus.

From the plantation to the bar

Cacao growing in Colombia

When we talk about a journey, we should mention the harvest, fermentation and drying process. Here, the labour of the farmers is intrinsically relevant. “The pods are ready to harvest when they have reached their mature colour, which can be yellow, orange or red. The farmers separate the pod from the stem with a machete, and then crack the pod open with a special wooden slab so as not to cut the seeds.

The seeds are still attached and bound by a white pulp at the time of harvest and all of that material is placed in the fermentation container, which can be a wooden box, jute bag, or, less ideally, a plastic bucket. The beans should then ferment for three to seven days.

During this time, the pulp ferments and drains from the boxes and the full cacao flavour develops in the beans. Once the beans are fully fermented, they are spread out on a cement or wood drying surface, usually protected by a greenhouse-like sliding roof to protect them from rain, to fully dry out for a few days”, explains Claire Nicklin of Fundación Conservación y Desarrollo, in Quito, Ecuador.

Also, cacao is sometimes fermented on the ground, covered in banana leaves, or even hung in bags (and the liquid that comes off is used as vinegar).

Fermentation and drying

Bagging dried cacao, Ecuador

Even if all these processes and events come together perfectly, unless the cacao is properly fermented and dried, the cacao is not much better than the bulk cocoa that is sold by container load on the commodities market. Fermentation and drying is a long and arduous process for the farmer.

According to Moisés, there are two important harvests: the main one begins in October and ends in March. The second runs between July and September. An average farmer would own four hectares which would produce four sacks of fine cacao per hectare. For sure, money is not the main driver as each sack is bought by the cacao exporters for US$ 140. What Moisés explains is that growing cacao is a culture inherited by the farmers’ ancestors.

It is concerning to see many older farmers at the plantations talk about the business. Clearly, they are worried. According to Conservación y Desarrollo the average farmer is 44 years old. Interesting to note that the average age of a farmer in Ghana is about 67 – higher than the average life-expectancy of 60.

In the best of scenarios, farmers are beginning to receive better education and either becoming agronomists or working in white collar jobs in the cities. Often they migrate to do construction work in nearby urban areas.

The transformation into chocolate

As I look for the most appealing chocolate bar at the chocolatier, I wonder how long it takes to make a fine chocolate bar. I am aware that for decades, fine cacao from South America has been exported to European chocolate makers who gain the reputation for producing beautiful bars. But what is really behind all this?

Grenada Chocolate 71% – low roast gives a light burgundy sheen

According to the book “Cooking with chocolate“, edited by Frederic Bau of Ecole du Gran Chocolate Valrhona in 2011, there are five stages in transforming cacao into chocolate. This is how Valrhona make chocolate: “

Stage one: Roasting. The seeds are roasted at temperatures ranging from 120C-150C for a duration of 15 to 40 minutes.

Stage two: Crushing. Under the weight of crushing hammers, the beans are freed of their shells and are reduced to minute particles of just a small fraction of an inch.

Stage three: Grinding. The beans enter a mill to be finely pulverized. What comes out is a rough powder that melts in the mouth, it is called cacao paste, cacao liqueur, or cacao mass.

Stage four: Refining. The raw chocolate paste is reduced to fined particles when ground by five to seven rollers spaced out at various intervals, and which work at various speeds.

Stage five: Conching. It improves the texture of chocolate, bringing out all its aromatic force. In a vat at a temperature of 80C, the machine churns and agitates the chocolate paste continuously for one to three days”.

But how long should you conch?

Art Pollard of Amano Chocolate

Some chocolate makers tend to keep their conching times a secret. Others strongly believe that it is not a mechanical process that takes 72 hours as if that were a ‘magic number’. It is as if top chefs such as Fergus Henderson, Ferran Adria or Heston Blumenthal were to say that the secret of a perfect roast is three hours in the oven.

“At Amano, we conch our chocolate until it is finished. We do not have a set time. It is all done to taste and that is my job. I get to taste each and every batch when it is in the conch machine at regular intervals and have to make the right decisions. In my experience, there is a 30 second window between under-conched chocolate and when the chocolate is perfectly conched. There is also a window when it becomes over-conched. When the chocolate has finished conching, it is determined entirely by taste”, declares Art.

Break it, smell it, enjoy it!

There is a saying- do not judge a book by its cover. In this case, do not chose a chocolate bar only by its packaging. Inquire about its journey, its origin, its process and its chocolate maker. Afterwards, just indulge yourself with a piece of it.

How do you taste chocolate? Break off a small piece, smell it, chew it a little bit and slowly let it melt in your mouth. Try to focus on the flavour. You can expect to discover an array of floral and fruity notes. There’s also a chance that you will be transported back in time to the very first day you ever tasted chocolate.

The post The rediscovery of cacao appeared first on Seventy%.