I heard on NPR about a gourmet chocolate called Krones? Crones? The
only thing I caught was the name and that it is very expensive.

Google was no help to me.

Can anybody help?

TIA,

JB

at Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:12:15 GMT in <1125421935.334481.204870
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, (John Barleycorn)
wrote :

>I heard on NPR about a gourmet chocolate called Krones? Crones? The
>only thing I caught was the name and that it is very expensive.
>
>Google was no help to me.
>
>Can anybody help?
>
How long ago was this? I did a quick look on the NPR site and found nothing
recent that would suggest what you'd heard.

Another crucial question: was this a manufacturer of pure chocolate bars (a
so-called "bean-to-bar" manufacturer) or a chocolate confectioner, i.e.
someone who takes finished pure chocolate and makes it into various
chocolate candies or baked goods? Things such as boxed assortments of
chocolates are made, generally, by entirely different companies than the
people who make the chocolate that comes in bars, blocs, etc. Usually the
former simply buy their chocolate from one of the (usually much larger)
latter companies.

Are you sure the name you're calling out there was the name of the company
or was it the name of the product or confection that they're famous for?
Many people confuse company name with product name and in many media
programs the company name is mentioned only briefly and inconspicuously if
at all, right at the beginning of the piece, so that if you tuned in late,
you'll miss it.

All that being said, my gut feel is that your name is actually an extremely
garbled interpretation of Valrhona. Valrhona is one of the larger and more
well-known of the high-end chocolate brands. They're indeed very good,
among the best and most consistent of the chocolate manufacturers. They
might be expensive, but there are more expensive brands yet, although most
of those brands aren't any better. A very small group of elite chocolate
manufacturers might arguably be said to be a hair better than Valrhona, but
this is a matter both of personal opinion and of splitting hairs.

Valrhona is well known for a light roast that accentuates fruity flavours
in chocolate. As a result, most of their chocolates have a very fruity
taste. For some people this will be delightful but others find it a bit too
extreme and wish the roast were a little less bright. Valrhona is also well
known for a smooth finish, so that the bars will be very creamy in
mouthfeel.

Recently Valrhona produced a chocolate calculated, it seems, to capture the
attention of the ultra-trendy: Porcelana del Pedregal. Porcelana is one of
the fashionable bean types of the moment, because it's considered to be the
purest of the Criollo strains (Criollo is the highest-quality of 3 basic
bean types). Porcelana del Pedregal is insanely expensive (about $80 for
320 g) and packaged in a rather silly, frou-frou way: it comes moulded into
pieces of chocolate that assemble into the stylised shape of a cacao
flower. Somebody over in marketing got really carried away. After all, at
the end of the day, it's simply a chocolate. A bar would have been more
practical and just as elegant. Anyway, the chocolate itself is excellent,
but there are better chocolates. In fact, it's the company that started the
Porcelana craze, Domori, that produces the best Porcelana chocolate (which
is, rather ironically, also the cheapest Porcelana). Domori's is one of the
very best chocolates in the world, but there are other chocolates which
IMHO are better still, although again, it's truly splitting hairs.

The other thing Valrhona started doing recently that caught public
attention was releasing vintage-dated chocolates from a single plantation -
the "Domaine" series. As of now there are 3 different plantations they're
offering: Gran Couva (Caribbean), Ampamakia (Madagascar), and Palmira
(Venezuela). If you want my opinion the Gran Couva has been the best of the
3, but Palmira has only had one vintage.

Finally, Valrhona might be given credit for starting the modern wave of
popular interest in quality chocolate thanks to their introduction of
Guanaja. This chocolate was the first widely available one in recent times
to make a really concerted effort at maximum quality and flavour. Even
today it holds its own in a galaxy of excellent chocolates as among the
best pure chocolate bars you can buy.

Does any of this ring any bells? I wouldn't have carried on but I thought I
might mention these points to see if they jogged anything in your memory.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

at Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:54:00 GMT in
>,
(Alex Rast) wrote :

>at Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:12:15 GMT in <1125421935.334481.204870
>, (John Barleycorn)
>wrote :
>
>>I heard on NPR about a gourmet chocolate called Krones? Crones? The
>>only thing I caught was the name and that it is very expensive.
>>

Another NG reader suggested the following:

http://www.dianekronchocolates.com/

Which would certainly be phonetically similar. I certainly hadn't heard the
NPR show and this reader's suggestion seems plausible.

Kron is a chocolatier as opposed to a chocolate manufacturer, so they don't
make their own chocolate but are rather buying the raw chocolate from one
of the couverture manufacturers. There's the most subtle of hints on the
site that the supplier is probably Felchlin. FWIW, Felchlin is a good
chocolate company but not really one of the elite chocolate manufacturers.
Different chocolatiers, meanwhile, are quite varied in their choice of
source chocolate manufacturer - some use one of the ultra-elite brands,
others don't, and this doesn't have very much impact on the final quality
of their chocolates, by and large.

BTW, if you would like to try Felchlin chocolate on its own, you can buy it
from, among other sources, http://www.chocolateman.net. It's only available
in bulk, but Felchlin doesn't sell retail so don't expect to find retail-
size bars anyway.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

HI, I've been lurking in the woods for a bit and am in the process of
starting my own chocolatier'ing operation and will eventually post more
and try to learn the ropes a bit better.

I used to live in Great Neck, NY and this Kron rings a bell although
this living occured pre-chocolate love era so i can't attest to them
being amazing or not or anywhere in between.

http://www.kronchocolatier.com/

Hope that's of some help,
Tim L.


John Barleycorn wrote:
> I heard on NPR about a gourmet chocolate called Krones? Crones? The
> only thing I caught was the name and that it is very expensive.
>
> Google was no help to me.
>
> Can anybody help?
>
> TIA,
>
> JB

By George, I think you've got it!

Thanks so much you two. Alex, you went the extra mile.

Thanks again.

JB