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at Wed, 27 Jul 2005 15:04:28 GMT in >,
(Michael Sierchio) wrote :

>Alex Rast wrote:
>
>Excellent, well-informed post.
>
> > ... Country of origin is never a reliable indication of quality.
>
>When I first read that I thought you were talking about the raw
>material. It is interesting to taste those "estate" chocolates
>from a single confectioner.... I don't think it's just a gimmick,
>there are cultivar and terroir, etc. to provide differences.

Yeah, when I said country of origin I meant country of origin of the
manufacturer. Country of origin of the cocoa beans themselves makes a big
difference in flavour, although even there you can't be assured of quality
based on bean source. For instance, although beans from the Ivory Coast are
generally thought of as "low-grade" and potentially involve slave labour to
boot, some Ivory Coast beans are excellent, and not all plantations use
slave labour either. Meanwhile although beans from Venezuela are generally
thought of as being "premium" beans, there are plenty of Venezuelan beans
whose quality is less than great. Even chocolate produced from the same
source can be different depending on the manufacturer. For instance, Dagoba
and Domori (2 quality chocolate manufacturers) both make a single-source
chocolate from the Conacado cooperative in the Dominican Republic. But the
Dagoba chocolate is really quite poor whereas the Domori chocolate (Chacao
Absolute) is one of the greatest chocolates that has ever been produced.

It is indeed interesting also to see how different factors play out in
single-source chocolates. There are influences from bean type, roasting
time, ferment time, and terroir among others. I generally believe bean type
and roasting time tend to have the largest impact. It's often hard to
separate bean type from location because a given region typically
specialises in a given bean variety. For instance, Barlovento in Venezuela
is a superb chocolate-growing region and tends to produce chocolates with
an exotic flavour of tropical fruits and sweet spices, but this is at least
as much because in the main the bean type there is Carenero Superior.
Madagascar chocolate usually has strong citrus notes, but there again, they
tend to be from similar Criollo bean genotype.

And there are cases that are hard to classify. For instance, Chuao, a
single village in Venezuela, produces a fantastic cacao, with very
characteristic, strong flavours of molasses and blueberry, along with an
unmistakeable power and a slight bitter hit at the end. And at the same
time there's a tendency to talk about the "Chuao" bean, even though beans
from Chuao have something of a mix of genestocks. But it's fair, by and
large, to speak of a Chuao varietal because they've used the same trees for
generations and not planted in new clones from elsewhere. So over time a
cacao type has emerged, with a mixture of backgrounds but with very
specific properties. As if that weren't enough, most people generally
classify the type as a Criollo even though it has a certain percentage of
Forastero genes (Criollo and Forastero are basic genotypes in cocoa).

Back to the single source, the roast and ferment times are likewise
variables that affect the result. A dark roast, for instance, tends to
flatten out individual distinctions of bean type and origin, but sometimes
this is in fact desirable because otherwise the chocolate might be too
"bright". For an Ecuador Arriba, a light roast would in fact be poor
because with its Forastero lineage that would make it bitter and harsh, and
furthermore most of the quality flavour characteristics in that bean,
leaning towards blackberry and aromatic woods, shine better with a dark
roast. Such a choice, however, would be disastrous for Porcelana beans
whose light, strawberry-and-cream essence, would disappear.

This is why the best (and in any case most pleasurable) option is to try a
variety of single-source chocolates from a variety of manufacturers, and
see which ones you like best. It's a valuable journey to take because then
you can identify the style and origins that you like and continue to try
new chocolates with a better concept of which ones you'll prefer.

--
Alex Rast

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

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