E. Guittard Chucuri Bittersweet

Ingredients: Cacao beans, pure cane sugar, cocoa butter, soya lecithin, vanilla beans.

I was recommended this bar by my co-worker Sneha, and I take a lot of pride in that – when she started work about six months ago, she told me she never craved sweet food, only salty snacks. Now it seems like she wants to eat chocolate every day, which just goes to show one of the risks of knowing a chocolate monster.

The Guittard Chocolate Company opened in 1858 in San Francisco before moving south to Burlingame, and has been family-owned and operated ever since. Guittard’s artisan line, E. Guittard, named for the company’s founder Etienne, was introduced in 2001. According to the wrapper, the Trinitario beans in this 65% bar were grown in the San Vicente de Chucuri Valley in Colombia.

This bar is deeply chocolatey and very addictive. It tastes light and flowery, then a hint of spice and herbs balances it out. In the aftertaste, the chocolate lingers, before the floral hints return. Definitely a favorite. (9.5/10)

Askinosie San Jose Del Tambo 70%

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, sugar, cocoa butter At the Askinosie tasting (which I’ll write more about in part 2 of my Askinosie post), I got to taste the Soconusco bar from bean to bar. Afterwards, I decided to purchase the San Jose Del Tambo bar at Bittersweet, to get a better idea of it. The bar starts out very fruity, with hints of raspberries and plums, and then progresses into a darker tone, woody with roasted coffee, with a dry finish. Pretty light – I ate more than a piece to get the flavor. The finish reminds me a little of the chocolate liquor at the tasting in the way it makes the tongue dry. I could imagine eating this bar with a beer, or maybe with some wine.

Askinosie Chocolate – Part 1: The Company

Being a compulsive email checker often proves useful, like last month when I received (and responded to, within a half hour) an email from Bittersweet Café about a tasting and discussion led by Shawn Askinosie of Askinosie Chocolate. I knew a little bit about Askinosie’s profit sharing methods, but I looked forward to learning more (and tasting chocolate, obviously).

The event took place on a Tuesday night, and around twenty people who also responded fast enough to make the cut showed up. We sat down around tables at the back of the first floor of the store; Askinosie stood in front of us, telling us his story and going through a slideshow on his laptop, while his wife Caron prepared and passed around the samples that I’ll talk about in my second post.

Shawn Askinosie was a criminal defense lawyer in Springfield, Missouri for nearly twenty years, defending people charged with murder and other serious crimes. His work started taking a toll on him and his family, and he realized he needed to pursue another line of work. Food was a passion of his; he was into barbecuing and considered going into the cupcake business for a while. But in May 2005, it came to him that he should be making chocolate. (I’ve had this thought before.) So he started making chocolate, first at home, and when that proved too messy for his wife, at his law office.

Askinosie’s beans come from two regions: San Jose Del Tambo, Ecuador, and Soconusco, Mexico, a popular cacao-growing region during Aztec times. Interesting, he’s one of the first people outside of Mexico to use those beans in over 100 years. I don’t remember him talking a lot about how he learned about the chocolate making process, but he did say he learned about the growing, drying, and fermenting of beans from the farmers. His lead farmer in Mexico is a trained agronomist, which probably helped a lot with refining the process.

The most interesting thing about Askinosie chocolate to me is the profit sharing mechanism. Askinosie pays farmers an above fair trade wage, and then shares 10% of the profits from chocolate made from beans from their farms. He also shows them his books, so they know how the profit is calculated. Profit sharing encourages the farmers to improve their product, and Askinosie provides development training for them to learn more.

Once he had his factory running, Askinosie went through several months of problems with the tempering process, partly because the bars don’t contain soy lecithin, an emulsifier that helps during tempering. Askinosie is one of only a few small batch bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the US, and apparently they’re a secretive bunch; besides one person from Guittard (which is a larger company), he didn’t have a lot of community support. It wasn’t until summer 2007 that Askinosie’s chocolates appeared on the market.

Other neat tidbits:

- Askinosie mentioned that he likes to pair chocolate with tequila. He also likes to pair chocolate with beer, like Dogfish Head Ale and Rogue Dead Guy (beers with a bite).

- Kids who live at the local homeless shelter and go to the nearby elementary school attend “Chocolate University,” where they learn about chocolate and entrepreneurship; the admission price for factory tours goes toward this program.

- Women from the local women’s shelter get paid to tie the strings, originally from the bags of cacao beans that arrive at the factory, onto the top of the chocolate bars.

- The packaging on the products is really slick, and so is the website; the bars come in brown packages, stamped with info and pictures of farmers, and contain maps of the area where the cacao is grown. According to Askinosie’s wife, he oversaw the package design.

- The Askinosie logo is the orange of UT, which is Askinosie’s wife’s alma mater.

Askinosie seemed like a really nice guy, and I look forward to seeing what he comes out with next.

Scharffen Berger Nibby (Semisweet)

Ingredients: cacao beans, sugar, milk, cacao nibs, cocoa butter, nonfat milk, non-GMO soy lecithin, and whole vanilla beans

I wasn’t planning on buying anything at the Scharffen Berger store, but this bar totally called out to me. When I buy a good quality (or sometimes not really good quality, but expensive) chocolate bar, I feel like I have to take eating it seriously or I’m wasting it. This bar is not serious at all, especially with the name “nibby”. Scharffen Berger could’ve given it a more serious name (like, um, “cacao nib bar”), but “nibby” suits it because it’s a fun bar.

I bought the one ounce bar, which adds to the fun aspect. It looks a little like a Nestle Crunch bar, but with far fewer bits. The nibs are scattered throughout, giving it a nutty crunch that’s not too extreme. They taste lightly roasted and bitter, and the 62% chocolate is fruity, like berries. I like the smoothness of the chocolate, which ends with a buttery melt on the tongue. I want to say the aftertaste is like tobacco, but I have zero experience with tobacco, so I have no idea why. It’s probably the aftertaste from the nibs, which are kind of like coffee beans, but happier.

All in all, a tasty bar that I feel comfortable eating at any time.

Scharffen Berger Chocolate factory tour

Last Sunday some friends and I went to Berkeley for factory tours at Scharffen Berger and Charles Chocolates. Since we weren’t leaving until 11:30, I had idealistically planned on going to the gym that morning, but I guess it’s all right that I didn’t since we got to perform manual labor at Scharffen Berger. Okay, I’m exaggerating – more at the end of the post.

I learned a few things on the Scharffen Berger factory tour:

- Scharffen Berger doesn’t source beans for their percentage bars from any one specific region; their beans come from all over the “Cacao Belt” (cacao-growing areas 20° north and south of the equator), and most bars contain beans from multiple origins.

- John Scharffenberger, one of the company’s co-creators, was previously a vintner. Since he sold his company, Scharffenberger Cellars, a year before he and Robert Steinberg started their chocolate company, he no longer had the rights to his name, which is why Scharffen Berger is split it into two words.

- The animal on the wrappers and bars is an ibex; the tour guide told us that it was on the Scharffenberger family crest.

During this part of the tour, several items were passed around for smelling, touching, and viewing: a cacao pod (preserved, not fresh), fermented cacao beans, roasted cacao beans, cocoa butter (in a semi-hard block), a vanilla bean, and various pictures. We also received some samples: cacao nibs (pretty tasty – had a lightly roasted, fresh flavor), and pieces from the 70%, 62%, and 41% bars. We also received samples of the 75% Antilles bar, Scharffen Berger’s latest bar from Trinidad, Grenada, the Dominican Republic and costal Venezuela, at the end of the tour.

70% Cacao Bittersweet: Berry taste up front (raspberries, blueberries), then a bit of bitter coffee flavor. Pretty mellow compared to some 70% bars I’ve tried.

62% Cacao Semisweet: Pretty sweet, also pretty fruity – I tasted some banana and citrus in this one. According to the tour guide, kids tend to prefer this bar.

41% Cacao Milk: a “dark milk” chocolate, very sweet and creamy, tasted like sticky butterscotch after chewing.

Antilles: Tasted some fruitiness, like plum, then a woody, ashy taste. I think I liked it better than the 70%, but I think I’d have to try it again.

During the second part of the tour, we donned hairnets (and facial hair nets, for some) to walk through the factory. The room with the roaster and winnower was closed off to the tour, but we could sort of see it through glass windows. I did get a good look at the mélangeur, where the nibs are ground, plus a good whiff of chocolate. The other machines are closed and thus not as interesting, and molding wasn’t in process. The tour guide told us about beginning of the process and probably said something about tempering or molding at the end, but I couldn’t hear her since our group was so large. There’s much more information about the process on the virtual factory tour.

The last time I went on the Scharffen Berger factory tour was a little less than three years ago, right after they’d been acquired by Hershey’s. When someone asked about the purchase during that tour, the guide told us that it probably wouldn’t affect how they produce their chocolate. I don’t know their chocolate well enough to know if anything’s changed, but I did notice that their retail store now carries Joseph Schmidt confections and Dagoba bars, the two other companies purchased by “Artisan Confections Company” (a Hershey’s subsidiary). Our tour guide also did some advertising for them at the beginning of our tour, showing us Joseph Schmidt’s “cute chocolate egg” for Easter, even though they use “a milder chocolate” and not Scharffen Berger chocolate in their confections. (She didn’t really advertise Dagoba besides a mention, maybe because their product is similar.)

Before the tour started, everyone walked from the retail store to the large room where they talk about the chocolate and pass out samples. My friends and I were near the back of the group, and when we arrived, the chairs and benches had run out. Instead of having us stand around for the twenty minutes it took for the initial presentation, the tour guide told us to start passing chairs to the front to create a new row. It wasn’t too much trouble, even though I came close to hitting people with chair legs a few times, but I was annoyed that people who weren’t handling the chairs grabbed them before we could and we ended up having to share seats. The last time I went on the tour, my friends and I showed up without reservations and had to wait to see if we could join. There were perhaps 40 people total. The tour guide told us that this tour had 72 people in it, far more than usual, because usually more people end up not coming, and they let everyone on the wait list come along. Since it’s a free tour, it’s totally lame of me to complain, but it would have been nice for people who reserved spots on the tour to get seats and hear the guide during the factory tour. The samples were pretty tasty, though, and I got a nibby bar that I’m itching to try.

Random Dutch Bonbons

My dad went to Utrecht recently and bought my family some chocolate bonbons from a woman at a window in the rail station. They mostly stayed intact during shipping from Atlanta to San Francisco, besides the atomic green white chocolate, which got squashed.Two of the bonbons were buttercream, but not like any I’ve had before – the fillings were much, much fluffier. The squashed white chocolate piece might have been pistachio (which would explain the color) and another piece was an orangey-brown and might have been hazelnut , but the light, airy texture stood out more than the flavor. The dark chocolate piece pictured below had a layers of buttercream and lemon filling, was an interesting combination and tasted much better to us. The two pralinés, white and milk, were our favorites. They each had a smooth chocolate ganache over a caramelized, nutty layer. I preferred the milk to the white, which was a little sweet for my taste.

Pretty interesting experience, and mostly pleasurable, though the colors used in some of the fillings scared me.

Dolfin Hot Masala

Ingredients: sugar, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, masala (cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, clove, ginger), natural vanilla, soya lecithin.

I snagged a couple pieces of this bar last week from my co-worker, who bought it at Bittersweet. The first taste was very sweet and cinnamony. Too cinnamony. I wanted more cardamom, cloves, pepper, and ginger, which came out more in the aftertaste. I expected more of a blend from a “masala” bar, and I’m wondering if I’d have liked it more if it were labeled differently. It was still pretty tasty, with creamy milk chocolate. (6/10)

Thanks, Sne-dog!

UPDATE, 3/27/08: So Sneha still had this bar in her backpack, and we tried it again, just after eating oranges. I don’t know if the oranges helped, but the flavor was much better. I still thought the scent of cinnamon was predominant, but we both tasted cardamom and ginger, and a bit of cloves, compared to the overwhelming cinnamonosity of our last taste. Does this bar improve with age? Did the oranges actually aid us in tasting the spices? Very curious. I’d push this rating up to a 7/10, based on this tasting.

Vosges Mini Exotic Candy Bars

Last Christmas I received this super cute sampler of Vosges mini bars. Each bar was half an ounce, a great size for tasting (especially since I like to share and was only eating a quarter ounce). All of the bars were enjoyable, with some more to my taste than others. In order from least to most favorite:

Woolloomooloo – 41% cacao: Roasted & salted macadamia nuts + Indonesian coconut + hemp seeds + deep milk chocolate. The sweet and salty combo was good, but the coconut and even milk chocolate weren’t as noticeable. It wasn’t really chocolatey. At times it tasted very sweet, but I noticed it before chewing on the coconut pieces, so it was more from sugar. The saltiness from the nuts contrasted the sugar. I couldn’t detect the hemp (6/10)

Black Pearl – 55% cacao: Ginger + wasabi + black sesame seeds + dark chocolate. There’s a definite ginger taste, then mellow wasabi flavor sets in. I liked the overall flavor, but I didn’t care for chewing on the sesame seeds and would’ve preferred it without them. It left a nice spicy taste on the tongue (6/10)

Naga – 41% cacao: Sweet Indian curry + coconut + deep milk chocolate. Sweet curry powder taste emerges first, then creamy chocolate, then the coconut bits. Not too much coconut. Ends with a hint of spice, but just a hint (6.5/10)

Oaxaca – 75% cacao: Guajillo & pasilla chillies + Tanzanian bittersweet chocolate. It tastes a little bitter at first, with a hint of chillies, but then the chillies develop as the chocolate melts. These chilies seem well suited to the higher percentage chocolate (7/10)Creole – 70% cacao: New Orleans style chicory coffee + cocoa nibs + Sao Thome bittersweet chocolate. The nibs are a great complement to the coffee, even though they are bitter, too – they have a different flavor. I never used to like bits of things in chocolate, but these taste good. Bitter, but flavorful as well (7/10)

Macha - 41% cacao: Japanese macha green tea + deep milk chocolate. Great macha tea flavor that doesn’t overpower the chocolate. I’m glad they didn’t include little bits of other things (7.5/10)

Gianduja – 41% cacao: Almonds + caramelized hazelnut paste + deep milk chocolate. Milk chocolate was nice and creamy; I could even eat a plain bar of it. The bar was very soft though, close to melting. Nice hints of saltiness to contrast the caramelized hazelnuts (7.5/10)

Barcelona – 41% cacao: Hickory smoked almonds + grey sea salt + deep milk chocolate. Small (subtle) flakes of salt contrast well with the chocolate, and smoked almond bits worked very well with it (unlike bits in some of the other bars) (7.5/10)

Red fire – 55% cacao: Mexican ancho & chipotle chillies + Ceylon cinnamon + dark chocolate. Little crunches of chili, cinnamony chocolate taste, then chilis set in and warm the throat. I preferred this bar to the Oaxaca, though both were good (7.5/10)

It’s a tasty sampler. Writing about it makes me want to go out and get one of the Vosges Easter bunnies…

Galler Chocolate Noir 70

Cocoa paste, sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifier: soya lecithin, natural vanilla.

Very smooth and creamy – it first tasted like chocolate, peanut butter and malt, with a roasted coffee finish. The second taste reminded me of opening a jar of natural peanut butter and stirring the peanuts and oil, but not too well, so that a little oil remains at the top. It’s very rich, and I could only eat one square at a time. I ended up using it in hot chocolate, which helped dilute the flavor; it still tasted peanut buttery, malty, and a little chalky, but not too rich to drink. 6.8/10

Vosges Calindia Bar

Calindia bar: Indian green cardamom, organic California walnuts, dried plums, Venezuelan dark chocolate; 65% cacao

I bought this bar a few months ago, and it’s one of my favorites among the Vosges bars. The cardamom emerges immediately, and it goes well with the dark chocolate. The crunchy walnut and chewy plum pieces add to the flavored chocolate without getting in the way, which was my problem with some of the other Vosges bars. 7.5/10