I learned something fascinating: the primary thing that distinguishes "good" chocolate from "bad" chocolate, apart from taste, is the texture--more specifically, the crystal structure of tempered cocoa butter. There are in fact six different crystal forms of cocoa butter [0], each with its own unique properties. The "goal" when making good chocolate is to allow as many Type V crystals to form as possible, because they have the best properties (great texture, good snap, glossy appearance as opposed to matte, and the melting temp is higher, closer to body temp).
In order to form a majority of Type V crystals, chocolate is first melted at a high temp to wipe the slate clean, so to speak (all six crystal forms are melted). It's then cooled so that Type IV and V crystals can form, then heated again slightly to melt any remaining Type IV crystals, leaving only Type V. Wonderful stuff!
https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin... https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin... https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin... https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin...
This was a little disappointing to see. But I think it would be a great follow-up topic to show how to make your own cacao butter.
While fair trade and similar designations are not a cure-all and mostly profit farm owners, they seem downright ethical in comparison to the slavery and child labor used by growers of low quality beans. The plain truth is that chocolate, like coffee, is expensive to produce. Source- I worked as a chocolate maker in the US. It really is a fascinating process. And as a bonus, many chocolate companies enjoy showing visitors the process. As far as industrial tourism goes, I highly recommend visiting one. There may be a high quality chocolate maker closer to you than you realize.
The process of shelling, toasting, grinding, conching, and tempering wasn't as difficult as one might think; I recommend curious minds to order some beans and try it out! It makes for a fun (and tasty) afternoon.
humans have existed only for a tiny fraction of the duration of the history of complex life on Earth
but somehow
humans managed to co-exist with chocolate, sugarcane, vanilla, bovids (cow milk, steak), coffee and any number of stupidly tasty things
I'm not going anywhere with this comment
but, like, wow, no!?
if humans had evolved a couple of million years earlier, or any of those stupidly tasty things had evolved a couple of million years later, we wouldn't have been able to experience them
no right or wrong here, just an honest and silly question
I know I wouldn't risk chocolate, coffee, beer and wine for anything
Of course, it's very likely that there were other stupidly tasty things a couple of million years ago, and will be still other stupidly tasty things a couple of million years hence.
no right or wrong here, just an honest and silly question
I know I wouldn't risk chocolate, coffee, beer and wine for anything
In addition human culture consciously breeds the good fruits etc. just look how some plants have been turned into monocultures. Most bananas we buy are clones of a variant that was deemed good. For other things humans did centuries or even millennia of selection.
Proof that there is a God! /s
If we didn't have cacao we would have learned to get something awesome from carobs, if we didn't have bovids we might have gotten fat deers, etc
There's soooo much stuff outside the usual flavours and ingredients even today.
- Look for "chocolate" shops, NOT "chocolates" shops! The latter tends to be confections / pastries, the former, bars
- Look for places with 90%+ bars (ideally a 100%). You might not like something that dark, but, it means that the source beans are good enough to stand on their own
- Slightly avoid places that put flavored bars (adding anything other than the core ingredients) front-and-center. They definitely can have amazing chocolate, and usually do have amazing flavors, but it does mean that they're not ALL about the cacao. (Don't even bother with "pressed" flavors; if it's not mixed in, it's gonna be mediocre).
- Look for bars that don't use soy lecithin.
Related - You could even skip the fermentation and roasting parts by simply buying pre fermented and roasted pods. Simply crush the beans, add your favorite milk and add sugar per taste. And voila! you can have the best chocolate you ever had.
This, like many other ideas about roasted bean products, is a silly universalization of some individual's arbitrary preference. It's like saying that all mushrooms _must_ be minced because someone didn't like the texture of whole mushrooms at one point. Or that coffee beans must be Arabica for...reasons...when billions of people preferentially drink Robusta.
I love unconched chocolate and strongly prefer it over conched. Taza in Somerville, MA is regionally famous for their delicious, distinct, gritty unconched chocolate.
