Dan’s Blog On Chocolate

Innovation is one of the main ingredients to any successful business, and particularly so when talking retail. In order to say on the cutting edge companies need to continually reinvent themselves. So what does this mean for the many chocolate retailers out there at the moment? Can one simply rely on the quality and quantity of their offering? It would appear not, well not in the northern hemisphere anyway.

With the current renaissance Europe has enjoyed with fine chocolate, there have been an abundance of new artisan chocolatiers and retailers all vying to get their share of the premium market. It would seem that times are changing and retailers are having to offer more than just product to entice customers through their doors. More and more, customers are looking for an experience when buying their little piece of indulgence.

This article outlines some of the businesses that are doing just that - the experience comes first - the product simply plays a part. Guido Gobino takes it to the extreme, creating a cocoon like cave for special tastings where “The moment someone sits on the round, lavender leather sofa, the translucent floor is bathed in fuchsia light and an over sized digital clock, projected on the smooth white walls, stops.” It is designed to eliminate distractions and enhance the tasting experience.

“Time stands still” says Mr Gobino, “nothing else to worry about, just focus on the chocolate” - How cool is that!

Gobino’s is not the only company setting off down this trend. ENO of Chicago, Chocolat Michel Cluizel of New York, Nectar Desserts and Bernard Callebaut of Calgary are just a few more offering hedonistic tasting experiences to satisfy even the staunchest of chocolate lovers. The article makes for a very interesting read, you can check it out here.

Here’s an interesting article I found about the recent and emerging trend of small American bean to bar chocolate producers. The article talks about some of the up and coming chocolatiers which are shouting about their processes and the beans that they are using. No longer are these guys simply content with being labeled ‘melters’, they are starting to scour the best known cocoa growing regions for premium beans to use for their own chocolate.

Companies such as Amano, Steve DeVries and Patric Chocolate have been in the bean to bar business for some time now, while budding new companies such as Rogue Chocolatier and TCHO have either only been open a matter of months, or are still yet to officially open their doors.

I think this is fantastic news for chocolate lovers, not only in the states, but also the world over. No longer will we have to suffice with low cocoa content and bland flavour profiles of the massed produced offering, now we can have the same sort of choice normally only afforded to lovers of fine wine. I will possibly be able to get my hands on some of the Amano Grand Cru selection to review shortly, and hopefully I will find the rest in due course. Watch this space…

In the mean time you can check out the article here.

I have had a few emails since my last post, so it seems I may have hit a nerve with some of the Aussie chocoholics (living here and abroad). I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks we are missing something here. My has search continued in earnest to find the fine quality Australian chocolate we all crave so much, leading me to stumble across this upcoming event.

The Portside Wharf in Brisbane will be hosting its inaugural Coffee and Chocolate Affair, an event which it claims will satisfy the pallets of chocoholics of all types. According to the program there will be chocolate infused menus from local chefs intertwined amongst local and national producers and retailers.

Also on offer will be a chocolate master class from Thomas Schnetzler - a Lindt trained Master Chocolatier, which I guess might be something similar to the chocolate tasting session offered by Hotel Chocolat’s diploma in chocolate, for any current students following this blog.

It sounds like a fun day, and I will definitely be attending. So if you are in the area and are interested coming along, leave a comment or drop me an email.

See you there!

I’ve been home in Australia now for about a week, and in this time I have been searching around my home city of Brisbane for the chocolate hit I have become used to in the United Kingdom - London in particular. Do you think I could find anything? Well only a few bars of Michel Cluizel here and a couple of usual spattering of Lindt over there. I was very surprised to see chains such as Myer and David Jones had begun stocking Thornton’s Chocolates in their premium range. Maybe they were there 2.5 years ago before my travels, maybe I just didn’t notice.

It seems that, between the time since I pulled my roots in Brisbane and now, chocolate does not seem to have had the same renaissance that it has enjoyed in England, Europe and even beginning in the USA. I have just found this article in the times online titled “the cut-throat world of chocolate“. It begins with the infamous truffle squishing escapades of Barry Colenso - the then head chocolatier of thornton’s chocolate, emphasising just how competitive the chocolate industry has become in the UK.

It is this competitiveness that has given rise to a number artisan chocolatiers in Britain, most of which are clustered in and around London. Each one creating their own signature chocolates and competing for awards, kudos and bragging rights at the annual academy of chocolate awards.

But what has happened in Australia? there has not been anywhere near the amount of interest in fine quality chocolate down under as there has been in the rest of the world - even Japan are jumping on the wagon these days.But our chocolates are still full of hydrogenated vegetable fats, loaded with sugar and dairy fats and with very small amounts of cocoa present at all. I actually picked up a bar of Cadbury’s ’black gold’ the other day (which is meant to be dark chocolate). It had a cocoa solid content of 45% and even contained milk solids!

Martin Christy - founder of www.seventypercent.com - postulates that it is up to the consumer to look behind the labels and start demanding a better quality as it is for chocolate companies to start using better ingredients. I agree. I think that the whole chocolate renaissance in the UK came around because of a more demanding marketplace. The consumers wanted to know more - they started asking where do the beans come from, how much cocoa is in the product, what are the health benefits? Slowly but surely the industry began listening, and I can honestly guarantee you that if you think you enjoy chocolate over here, wait till you immerse yourself in the world of british and European chocolate - it really is something else.

I would love to hear any fellow Australian’s views on the chocolate industry over here. Have I hit the nail on the head or missed the mark entirely? Answers on a postcard…

I recently found this interesting interview with Art Pollard, the founder of chocolate company Amano, on the interweb. It is a 5 part interview (so far only parts one and two are available), and so far has touched on how he got into chocolate as well as how the company source their beans. An interesting read for anyone wanting to get to know their chocolate companies a little better. Check it our here.

Africa’s governing cocoa authority, COCOBOD, has released more than USD$14.5 million to the licensed buying companies (LBC’s) for bonuses to be paid to the local cocoa farmers. The breakdown is USD$22.49 / tonne of cocoa for each of the LBC’s clients. Amongst these LBC’s is Kuopa Kokoo Ltd, the people behind the divine chocolate range. COCOBOD says these bonuses (paid twice yearly) are an incentive for the farmers to continue to produce premium quality cocoa for export.

For a complete list of all the LBC’s involved you can check out the original article here.

A new pesticide has been discovered in Papua New Guinea using the oil from a plant native to the country which has shown to be particularly effective against pests and diseases which threaten local cocoa and coffee plantations.

Currently PNG relies on the help of other countries for its pest control, but this discovery could help to not only break away from this dependence, but could also help other neighbouring countries such as Indonesia who’s cocoa industry was all but decimated by pests and disease. You can see the original article here. Watch this space.

Hotel Chocolat’s Chocolate Tasting Club News that is. They have decided to start doing a bio section in the club news highlighting some of the people working in the company. So if you wanted to find out a bit more about myself, or a bit more about the company for that matter, click on the picture to bring up the latest edition of the club news and have a read. As always if you would like to know anything more, just leave a comment and I will get back to you.

Also, if you would like any more information on the club itself go here.

Background: This bar holds high expectations for me, as I tasted another Sambirano bar from Malagasy that I found very enjoyable. Both bars get their name from the Sambirano Valley in Madagascar where the beans are grown, so they should be similar in taste. Through my experiences so far, however, I have found Domori have quite a light roast on their beans, and for this reason I am expecting this chocolate to be somewhat bolder in flavour than that of the Malagasy bar.

Appearance: This bar uses the same mould as the rest of the Domori Cru range. It’s a whole, flat bar with no division lines in it. This bar seems to be a but lighter than that of the other’s I have tried so far. Perhaps this is due to an even lighter roast or simply a characteristic of the beans from this region. In saying that, the Malagasy bar was darker than this, but then it did have an extra 5% cocoa content.

Sound: Typical of Domori this chocolate has a crisp and defined snap to it.

Feel: Very smooth, as expected from this brand and melted very fast. More so than the other Dormori’s I have tried in the past. I think this might have more to do with the temperature in the room than the contents of the bar.

Smell: This bars smells fruity, but not like berries. Rather it smells like raisins and prunes. It does have some sort of rich, almost tangy scent to it. There are also some undertones of what I think might be tobacco.

Taste: Firstly this chocolate melts very quickly in the mouth. It is extremely smooth with no texture at all to talk about. As soon as you put it in your mouth you get that same raisin / Prunes flavour that I smelled earlier. As the flavour progresses though, it develops a very tangy sensation. I liken it, at first, to when you chew on the skin of a plum, but then it changes to a light citrus acidity which I would normally attribute to a cold Corona on a hot summer afternoon. The flavout lingers well in the mouth, but when it is all said and done there is a left over tang towards the back of the mouth.

Funnily enough, when we had a tasting session with Chloe at work she mentioned Domori having a kind of trademeark alcoholic bite in the aftertaste - Not too dissimilar from the sensation you get from drinking wine. At the time (having tried two of the Domori bars) I disagreed, but with this bar I think I know what she was talking about.

Ingredients: There are only two ingredients in this bar: Cocoa mass and Cane sugar. No extra cocoa butter to note, so the fast melting time was more than likely the room temperature.

Overall rating: I found this bar to be quite enjoyable, if a little too tangy. The flavour is intense almost to a level that it seems quite juicy. I do dislike this alcoholic tang that seems to be present in this bar though (which does tend to get worse the more you eat). I asked Chloe what this might be put down to and she seems to think it has something to do with the fermentation process (makes sense!). Put to a choice I think I would choose the Malagasy bar over this one. 7/10.

For those who don’t know, Hotel Chocolate became the proud new owners of the Rabot Estate (a cocoa plantation on the Island of St Lucia in the West Indies) in April of 2006. You can read the story behind the Rabot estate on the Hotel Chocolate website, but the main aims of the estate are three fold.

1. Re-establish Rabot estate as a viable thriving cocoa grower (the focus for most farmers had switched from cocoa to bananas prior to Hotel Chocolat’s purchase of the site - Production is now 35% higher than it was pre 2006)

2. Build a chocolate factory in St Lucia (The idea is to export finished product from the island instead of raw materials and hence keep as much value on the island as possible)

3. Build a boutique chocolate hotel (with the aim of increasing tourism income into the island’s economy)

As you can see from the production statistic above, phase one is well under way. Hotel chocolat is working with the local government in order to achieve these goals, and recently had a rather important endorsement for phase 2 of the project.

On Friday the 7th of March 2008, HRH the Prince of Wales visited the Rabot Estate tasked with the important role of breaking the earth for the foundations of the new chocolate factory that is due to be finished by the end of 2009. During the day he met with a number of the local farmers (both from Rabot and the surrounding farms), spoke with the owners of Hotel Chocolat, was introduced to the local flora,tasted some of the local chocolate, and finally cut the first section of soil for the foundations of the new chocolate factory.

Check out some of the images below.