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Chocolate Lesson Pack
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This page is a Work In Progress – feel free to make your own edits/additions.

Goal: Provide a series of guided tastings to get new recruits acquainted with craft chocolate.

The tastings below will list explicit bars, but substitutions within the same realm should be totally fine.  They're provided in a relatively sensible progression, but obviously you can go at it however you want.  So far, I've divided the tastings into 3 different tracks:

  • xx2 - Learn the impact that cocoa beans and where they're grown has on the flavor of chocolate.
  • xx3 - Learn the impact that different ingredients have to the final flavor of the chocolate.
  • xx4 - Learn the impact that different processes to make chocolate have on the final flavor.

Progression

Chocolate 101 - Introduction

Iconic good craft chocolate bars.  These are all tasty and is just a great way to get into chocolate.

  • Dick Taylor Fleur de Sel
  • Patric PBJ OMG
  • Hogarth Gianduia

Chocolate 102 - Single Origin Comparison - Same Maker

Chocolate is a crop similar to wine.  Where the bean grows will impact its flavor dramatically.  Learn the differences by trying some single origin chocolate bars where the only difference between them is where the beans came from.

  • Dandelion Madagascar
  • Dandelion Papa New Guinea
  • Dandelion Ecuador

Chocolate 103 - Ingredients Introduction

Obviously, what you put in your chocolate makes a huge difference.  Let's do a quick journey of different styles of chocolate that vary on ingredients.

  • 100% White Label - Just Cocoa Beans
  • 70% Tcho - Cocoa Beans and Sugar
  • Dark Milk by Fruition - Cocoa Beans, Sugar, Milk, Cocoa Butter
  • White Chocolate by Askinose - Cocoa Butter, Milk
  • Compound Chocolate - Vegetable Oil, Cocoa Beans, Sugar

Chocolate 104 - Same Origin, Different Makers

The bean and ingredients are not the whole story.  Different chocolate makers make their chocolate differently.  Let's try chocolate bars with the same beans and percentages but made by different chocolate makers to get an idea of how different the outcomes can be. Feel free to use a different origin, Madagascar is just easy to find.

  • Dandelion's Madagascar
  • Akesson's Madagascar
  • Arete's Madagascar
  • Dick Taylor's Madagascar

Chocolate 202 - Single Origin - Microclimates

Marou is a chocolate maker that makes different chocolate bars, all from Vietnam, but different parts of Vietnam.  Though a small country, you can really taste the differences the different terroir of Vietnam brings to the final flavor of the chocolate.

  • Any set of Marou bars will do.

Chocolate 203 - Different Milks

Like all other ingredients, milk can not just vary in quality, but also also in source.  Trying different chocolate bars with different kinds of milk really lets you appreciate how diverse milk can be and how the different flavors play with each other with chocolate.

  • Cow Milk Chocolate
  • Goat Milk Chocolate
  • Sheep Milk Chocolate
  • Camel Milk Chocolate
  • Buffalo Milk Chocolate
  • Donkey Milk Chocolate

Chocolate 204 - Conching and Roasting

Same origin, percentage, and maker, but different conching and roasting.  Conching and roasting are some of the major contributors of flavor apart from the bean itself.  Let's explore what knobs chocolate makers are twisting when experimenting on the different lengths of conching and roasting.

  • Fresco's 72% Dominican Republic Light Roast, Subtle Conche
  • Fresco's 72% Dominican Republic Medium Roast, Medium Conche
  • Fresco's 70% Peru Medium Roast, Long Conche
  • Fresco's 70% Peru Dark Roast, Long Conche

Chocolate 302 - Different Harvest

Similar to wine, the same grapes from the same region will vary year over year.  Likewise, chocolate made from the same beans from the same region will vary from harvest to harvest.  Let's see if we can start picking out these minor influences in flavor.

  • Dandelion Madagascar 2016 Harvest
  • Dandelion Madagascar 2017 Harvest

Chocolate 303 - Ingredient breakdown

First try the raw ingredients that go into making chocolate.

  • Cocoa nibs
  • Cocoa powder
  • Cocoa butter
  • Sugar
  • Vanilla
  • Milk Powder
  • Soy Lecithin

Now repeat tasting #103 and try to pick out the different ingredients in each bar.

Chocolate 304 - Fermentation and Drying

Fermentation and Drying are arguably the most important steps in flavor development for cocoa beans that takes place at the farm.  Unfortunately, I have no bar suggestions here, as it's hard to come by short-fermented vs long-fermented beans, as they're often considered bad.  But if you happen to find chocolate with different fermentation styles or drying styles, it's worth having an educated taste on!

Chocolate 700 - Let's make chocolate!

If you’ve managed to go through the other tasting classes and are excited for more, then you might be interested in taking your hand into making chocolate from scratch! You can do as much or as little of the process as you’d like depending on where you’d get started (from unroasted beans, roasted beans, cocoa nibs, or a block of cocoa liquor). Wherever you start from, with the addition of some sugar and other ingredients, you can go through the process of refining, tempering, and molding your own chocolate bars! We will explore every step of the process and how different changes in the process affect the finished product.

There’s many guides out there on how to go about making chocolate at home yourself. The two that are fairly commonly referenced are the following:

Chocolate making involves a refining step that can take anywhere from 12-48 hours, and therefore, expect to spend at least 2 full days. However, because chocolate making has many variables subject to experimentation, you should pad your schedule up to 4 days.