chocolate tasting

Gnosis Chocolate, Righteously Raw, Fine & Raw and Pacari

2010-12-01T03:18:00.000-08:00

In the last days I made, with a break of two days, different tasting.
One of the focus was healthy chocolate, another Michel Cluizel and a third curiousity and rare chocolate brands. Here is my experience with healthy chocolates.

It seems that this is the new trend. I don't really agree to combine chocolate with a healthy diet.
Of course, I want eat good chocolate with good and natural ingredients. But not more. I don't need that the chocolate which I consume is a benefit for my body. Cocoa already is, even if it was fermented, heated and conched, healthy.

Gnosis chocolate
I like the brand and Vanessa Barg (founder of Gnosis). The brand and the design are funny and Vanessa is very charming and cheerful.
The chocolates are all made with raw cocoa and they use only Agave or Palm Nectar to sweet.
Others ingredients are very exotic like Blue-Green Algae, Camu Camu Berry, Maca Root, Damiana, Fo Ti, Yohimbe, Dong Quai, Ashwaganda, Gotu Kola etc.
I know only few of this ingredients, but I know that some of them give to the chocolates a strange taste.
I tasted five different bars and the pumking spice truffle. The best bar was Aphrodisia. Aromatical and fruity, pleasant to eat and sweeted with Palm Nectar.
The other bars are good or ok and eatable. The pumking spice truffle was really overdosed with spices. It could be a good product, but not with this dosage of spices.
Fine & Raw
I can not confirm if the chocolates from Fine & Raw are really raw, also not, if they produce from bean to bar. The chocolates are not so "native" like Gnosis chocolates. They lookes like ordinary chocolates. The taste is much more aligned to the populare taste, but still different.
The crystals & himalayan salt 70% dark chocolate Ecuador was the best of five different bars.
I tasted also the truffle pure cocoa. I payed 35$ for 8 pieces and I can say that this was one of the badly truffle I ever tasted. Everything was horrible. Texture, chocolate cover, mothfeeling, taste. I really do not understand what this truffle should be. Wasted money and wasted time.
Righteously Raw
I tasted four different filled chocolate bars.
In the ingredient lists is never written chocolate. Here is an example:
Organic cocoa butter, organic cocoa powder, organic avai berry (freeze dried), organic agave nectar, organic coconut oil, organic yacon sirup, organic vanilla bean, himalayan pink salt.
So I suppose that they mix cocoa butter with cocoa powder.
Other bars are with exotic ingredients like Maca Root or Mesquite Pod.
If I want to do something for my body I will buy food supplements in the drugstore or in the pharmacy. Raw exotic food can I buy at the asia-shop. But I don't need this kind of chocolate bars.
I really don't like this four bars.
Pacari
I tasted six different bars, also two RAW. I was sceptical after my experience with the other raw chocolate makers.
But I can write honestly that I tasted for the very first time a 100% pure chocolate which is consumable, no even good. The second one, a 70%, was also very good.
The other ecuadorian chocolates are good and will be in one of my next special blog about Ecuador-bars.

Georg

Jacques Torres, Mälarchocolaterie, Sampaka, Dolci Pensieri di Calabria

2010-11-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

Again, I wasted a little bit my time. The chocolate bars from Jacques Torres were horrible.
Milk chocolate
The wicked bar (with chili)
Bean to bar 70%
Coffee
Every bar had a bad taste. The coffee bar (I bought this one in his Store in the Hudson Street) was grey and had no coffee taste.
Wasted money and wasted time.

Mälarchocolaterie
Was nice, I tasted 4 bars.
White with salt and pepper
Milk with curry
White with green tea
dark with Ancho Chili

Every bar good.

Sampaka
Different bars like Gin & Tonic (nice, but mostly fruit flavor, no Gin flavor), Orange Blossom (I don't like Orange Blossom, but good taste), Madagasca 71% (not good), Strawberry & Roses (strong Rose flavor, strawberry flavor not enough), La Joya (a nice one).

Dolci Pensierie di Calabria
Lemon: Not strong enough
Strawberry with white chocolate: Ridiculous
Chili: Strong, but ok

Sorry, today only a short form, I have to continue to write my book;-).

Georg

Amano, Amedei, Bonnat, Pralus and Oriol Balaguer

2010-11-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

Today we split the tasting in two steps. This after noon chocolate bars bean to bar, this evening filled chocolates from Oriol Balaguer.
Chocolate bars:
We made two different tasting, comparing some Chuao and Porcelana between Amano, Amedei, Bonnat and Pralus. Than we finished the total tasting of Amano chocolate bars.
There are big difference between the Chuao from Amano, Amedei, Pralus and Bonnat.
Bonnat and Pralus has 75% cocoa, Amano and Amedei 70%. The taste are very different.
No one is bad. I think that at the and everybody had his favorite deepending his favorit flavor profile.
I don't like so much the Pralus-Porcelana, because Francois Pralus in my opinion overroasted the beans. the taste of roasting was too dominant.
Amano's Chuao is totaly different, but he use like Amedei Vanilla in his bars. I really don't understand why. Chuao-Beans don't need any addition of other ingredients as sugar and probably a little bit cocoa butter.
Vanilla change too much the taste of chocolates, for this my opinion is that dark chocolates should never have a addition of vanilla.
Ok, some years before, Amano had much more vanilla in his chocolates. It is already much less.
The Bonnat Chuao was also a little bit overroasted, but still ok.
At the end I think that I prefear the Amedei, even if there is also vanilla in the chocolate. But in summary it was the best of all.

Amedei Porcelana vs. Bonnat Porcelana
I like both, but I think that 70% works better for a Porcelana. The taste of Amedei is round, complex, fruity, earthy, spicy... No taste of roasting. But again, with vanille. Why???

Amano bars
We tasted the follow bars:

Montanya 70% Dark Chocolate

Madagascar 70% Dark Chocolate

Chuao 70% Dark Chocolat sigature collection

Ocumare 70% Dark Chocolate

Ocumare 30% Milk Chocolate

Jembrana (Bali) 30% Milk Chocolate

Each chocolate is with vanilla, still again, why? Did Amano's chocolates has to hide something? Why he don't let represent the beans their flavor?

Montanya is complex in flavors, but too astringent and sour.
Madagascar don't tolerate the vanilla. It is a fruity cocoa with a hint of spices and don't need any addition of vanilla. The natural flavor of vanilla is enough.
Ocumare have a strong taste of licorice and is smokey, but after Amano the tastes should be fruity, pruns, woody, smokey and raisins.
I worked with a lot of Ocumare-beans, but I never had this kind of flavor profile. especielly the smokey taste confused me. But it is not a bad chocolate.
Chao I already wrote my opinion.
The milk chocolates... I read a lot of different reviews in the web. The reviews are very positive, but I totaly don't agree to them. The taste of cocoa is too low and they are too sweet. Why produce a 30% milk chocolate? This don't make any sense.
I suppose that they are not more than 20% of cocoa beans inside. How do you want to get an cocoa bean identity in a chocolate with only 20% of beans? I don't believe that it is possible.
The Ocumare have a hint of identity, but it is not enough. He could make much better if he take 30 or 40% of cocoa beans. The Jembrana have even less taste. This is done to the lower impressive cocoa taste of Bali-Beans.
I will taste them again and compare with other milk chocolates like the 40, 50 and 60% of Zotter, but also with the low cocoa bars from Valrhona (to see the difference with same cocoa %).

Amedei:
We also tasted the Madagascar 70%. Realy nice chocolate. The added vanilla is very discreet.

Oriol Balaguer:
Great packaging
Great shape
Great taste

No one is bad, 3-4 are excellent, 5-6 very good and the rest not less than good.
Mostly you even don't need to read what flavor the chocolate should have. You can taste directly the taste. The corn-praliné is fabulous, the Yuza realy great.

In any case he will get a very good review.

That's all for today.

Georg

Tasting of Mary's Chocolate and Jacques Torres

2010-11-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

Today I had the (un)pleasure to taste again filled chocolates. It starts to be hard to continue with filled chocolates. It is in my opinion much more difficult for the stomach.

I started this morning with Jacques Torres.
This is the liste of tasted filled chocolates:

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Melon Port Wine

Pistacchio Marzipan

Fresh Coconut

Fresh Sqeezed Lemon

Pineapple Pastis

Chocolate Mint Tea

Love Potion No 9

Ménage a Trois

Coffee

Grand Cru

Ginger

Pure

There was no very good or good one. The best of them was the "Fresh Sqeezed Lemon".

This afternoon I tasted Mary's Chocolate. I bought them at the New York Chocolate Show.
One box called Broadway Lovers, one called N.Y. Ring Truffles Chocolates (12$ and 8$)
Mary's Chocolate was surprising bad. Nice packaging and nice shapes, but bad texture and bad taste.
Here the list of the samples:

Chocolate Cream

Green Tea

Raspberry

English Tea

Mango

Cranberry

Bitter Ganache

Caramel

Raspberry

Peach

Champagne

Not one of them was good. Artificial taste and very hard fillings.

Mary's Chocolate do not deserve to be mentioned in my book. I will think about it.
For Jacques Torres I am not sure. It was not really bad, but nothing special.
Or perhaps I have to warn chocolate lovers about the chocolate quality. What do you think?

Last tasting today

2010-11-19T09:08:00.000-08:00

Today I had the desire to taste one more company. Regarding the shelf life of the filled chocolates (I still have filled chocolates from Geneveha, Jaques Torres and Mary' s) I chose Geneveha.
A small Company from Luxembourg. I bought them, because they looked nice and were, compared to other filled chocolates, not expensive and it makes my book more international to have another country.
I tried 8 different chocolates. Unfortunately not all chocolates are in the description, so I had to guess the taste. This is not always possible.
They are all not bad, but they are not more than average quality. But much better than the stuff from Knipschildt or the filled chocolates from Venchi. Incredible how bad they are.

I already tasted a lot of filled chocolates and I will be happy to close this section of my book for some weeks after tasting the last two companies. I will make a break and continue with the chocolates bars. It is much more difficult to taste filled chocolates than chocolate bars. Even if I try to taste only a small bit, sometimes it is necessary to taste more to be sure for my review. But eating so much creme and sugar, at the end it is sometimes too much.
But today I separated the tastings over 8 hours, so I could go ahead.

I started the blog much later than the tasting. I will try to put online some older tastings, so you can see what I already tasted in the past.

Georg

New tastings Prestat, Knipschildt and others

2010-11-19T03:08:00.000-08:00

Ok, yesterday and today I made new tastings.
And the winner are...
Rogue and Patric Chocolates. Really nice stuff they make.
Rogue have only three bars, but they are all fantastic.
Patric Chocolates we tasted more and I like them all, especielly the dark milk chocolate with 60% of cacao. Delicious.
I also tasted chocolates from the Mast Brothers. There are really nice chocolates, but some chocolates are not so good.
The dark chocolate with Serrano Pepper is really to spicy. You don't taste anymore the chocolate. Also the hazelnut. This one I don't like, because the dark chocolate cover too much the taste of the hazelnuts.
But the design is great. I love it.

Yesterday we was dissapointed from Knipschildt and also a little bit of Max Brenner. But especially Knipschildt is really bad stuff. Don't try them, you will be dissapointed.

Today I started with Prestat. Nothing special, no one is good, but some chocolates are really bad (for example the Violet Chocolate. Sweet, sweeter and more sweeter... They use bad quality of chocolat for al truffles.

Then I tasted Amedei filled chocolates. Nice, but not great. Possible to consume them, not so like Knipschildt or Prestat.

Georg

The story behind the idea

2010-11-17T02:48:00.000-08:00

For more than 18 years I was chocolate maker. I learned to be pastry chef and in 1992 I founded my own chocolate company. I sold my business in July 2010 and I started in October 2010 a new project. The tasting of the best chocolates in the world. I aim to publish a book about this experience.
Today the market is over and over of new chocolate companies. Especially in the USA are a lot of start up companies producing fine chocolates. It becomes more and more difficult for the customer to make his choice. Which chocolate is really made from bean to bar? Which chocolate have the right ingredients? Who use artificial flavours? Which chocolates are too sweet?
In the future you will find my tasting impressions regularly in my blog. Comments from everybody are welcome. Hope you enjoy my blog.