I was gobsmacked today, really really taken aback by a simple taste comparison between two chocolate bars made from the same batch of cocoa liquor from Jamaica. Basically, we got cocoa liquor from a supplier who processes the beans into liquor, basically grinding it down into a paste. This supplier from France also makes their own chocolate bars, but it will not be a brand name you will recognize, as they are quite under-the-radar.
This was the best example to date of how different processing techniques on the same cocoa liquor produces totally different results. Though I’m still recovering from a cold and taste functions are quite muted, the marked difference made it all the more shocking.
Bar 1 = Artisan du Chocolat’s Jamaica Bar. Bar 2 = French made Jamaican Bar.
Bar 1 had a slight acidity as the first note which ushered forth dried mango and tamarind paste sandwiched between dried banana chips (Yes, weird association, but it is a very very fond flavour memory of mine). This brought me back to Talat Thai Wholesale market in Bangkok, where tropical fruits scented the aisles.
At the end, the flavour of civet cat poo coffee from Vietnam unveiled itself (Actually, my flavour bank’s civet cat poo coffee is from Chiang Rai in Thailand, but everyone associates it with Vietnam).
Perhaps the cold virus was playing mind tricks on me, but it was that unmistakable flavour of coffee with a fruity/nutty bouquet and a bit of acidity without any bitterness.
Bar 2 on the other hand was lifeless and flat, no ups or downs, just the horizontal stroke of a corpse hooked up to an ECG machine. Apparently, copious amounts of vanilla was added, but I could not really taste it clearly, other than the very familiar taste of el cheapo supermarket branded chocolate bars.
The classical belief that long conching develops flavour and adding more fat creates beautiful mouthfeel is just old fashioned rubbish. How many chefs still believe that you have to sear/brown your steak to seal in the juices when you are actually doing the opposite?
2 makers, same cocoa, different results. Making chocolate indeed is an art and a science, and I am forever indebted to my bosses at Artisan du Chocolat for sharing their knowledge whole heartedly and giving me the chance to experience REALLY making chocolate as opposed to just melting it.
If you have only 2 hours to spare for chocolates in Paris (That is a wasteful sin, by the way), make L’Etoile d’Or your one and only stop. Just a short walk from the Moulin Rouge (Metro Line 2 – Station Blanche), you will enter a world of some of the best chocolates you can ever find in France. 
Meet the owner and veritable global food celebrity, Denise Acabo. She’s been in magazines in different languages and she has 2 Japanese assistants to cope with the flood of Japanese tourists. Besides being highly knowledgeable about chocolates, she stocks chocolates from the best chocolatiers in France (Wait, I said that already!). Basically, she sells what she herself only likes and she is such a character that she is the only person who sells Bernachon chocolates outside of Maison Bernachon in Lyon. This was also the reason I paid her a visit.
Only 2 days in Barcelona, so many places to go, so little time and yet another chocolate museum beckoned. There are many chocolate museums in Spain, and
Hot, sweaty, tired from walking all over the city visiting pastry and chocolate shops in a blistering Spanish summer heat, I was waiting all week for this. Oriol Balaguer’s much vaunted Paradigma del Chocolate, or as they say in Spain, mucha aclamada, for this is a variation on his famous 8 textures of chocolate, a masterpiece of a cake called Paradigma del Chocolate.
