Cocoa Encounters

26/07/2024

Obolo Origin Pangoa Peru
🍫🍞
Joining a chocolate and in a bid to catch up on the Tangential Tasting Twin Tuesday alphabet series with a bar where the O and P are very much in partnership.

Óbolo is Mark Gerrits, his family and his values and their chocolate making enterprise in Santiago, Chile. Pangoa is over 700 cacao farmers living and working just east of the Peruvian Andes and this bar is a consolidation of the work of all of these people.
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There is a great quote from Mark on the website about this partnership “The cacao farmers are much more than suppliers of our raw materials. They are the protectors of the forest and its biodiversity. They are our friends and partners, with whom we share common values of quality fairness and sustainability.”
🍫🌳
This is quite a mature bar, its been hiding in my Peru collection for a while but not less an experience:
- fragrant fruit, strawberries and lychee then climbs higher to a raspberry, then descends again into a touch of goldenberry. It is sweetened with a drizzle of honey and then deepens into raisins and dark sugars and an intensely satisfying finish.
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This is a two ingredient bar, just cacao and sugar, Obolo and Pangoa. All you need, just like bread and chocolate.
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Perfect way to start a Friday. Thank you and
🙏🙏

15/07/2024

We’re very happy to announce that yesterday we won New Awards with the International Chocolate Awards 2024 -UK Edition for the following bars, plus a few extra awards!

From left to right:
49% Macadamia Milk, Chuao, Venezuela 🇻🇪 won a Gold Award 🏆, plus extra awards for:
🏆 Direct Trade
🏆 Chocolatemaker
🏆 Vegan

Another Gold Award 🏆 for our 69% Plum Ferment, Chuao, Venezuela 🇻🇪 , Dark Chocolate, plus more awards for:
🏆 Innovation
🏆 Ground In (ingredients smoothly ground into the chocolate)

And last, but not least a Bronze Award for our 40% Chuncho Cashew White Chocolate, Peru! 🇵🇪

15/07/2024

12/07/2024

In October, I’m going to be delivering the IICCT Levels 1 and 2 in-person in the UK at my new teaching and tasting space in Louth, Lincolnshire. I will be offering Level 1 (one day) and Level 2 (3 days) separately or combined in a concentrated 4 day workshop. The Level 2 will also include half a day at Duffy’s Chocolate where you get to meet and see the making process as part of our teaching and tasting of different chocolate production scales.

Louth is my home town. It is a traditional market town in the heart of the Lincolnshire Wolds, not far from the Lincolnshire coast. I can give support in organising travel and accommodation for your stay and provide information about the local area to make the most of your time and we will organise evening meals and get togethers for anyone who wants to participate.

There are full details of the courses on the IICCT website and my website SEE LINK IN BIO but let me know if you would like more information or if I can help you decide if the course and venue is right for you.

I’ll post updates about teachers and course content over the next few weeks.

Very excited to be welcoming tasters to Louth and being able to teach the courses in-person.

🍫🍫🍫📖📖📖

09/07/2024

Tangenting myself with a Northern Irish nod to the children’s stories in my last post and a bar from NearyNógs for , as the company name was a creation of grandpa Neary, a writer of children’s stories.

I am also twinning with and the Irish Collection Old Fashioned bar ( a nod your St Patrick’s Day post too! ☘️)

This is a noble bar in both pairing and presentation. The aromatic vigour of this perennial herb is a natural marriage with the banana sweetness and chocolate cake boldness of the Togo cacao but it is the crafting that makes this work. It could so easily be out of balance. I love the way the lavender drifts in and out as you taste without dominating or over whelming the chocolate.

Another natural pairing is the NearyNogs family and their work nestled between the Mourne Mountains and the Irish Sea and the noble women of the Kekeli cacao cooperative growing cacao around Mount Agou in Togo. A match in respect for their materials and skill in crafting flavour.
❤️
I love this noble bar and what it tells me about the plants and the people behind it. #

08/07/2024

Sneaking in a before tomorrow with a MILK bar paired with Neil Gaimans’ Fortunately The Milk because milk chocolate is not just for children and neither are children’s books.
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This book is hilarious, and as often described, mind-bendingly clever. The illustrations by political cartoonist Chris Riddell are a stroke of genius too. When reading it to my kids I honestly couldn’t say who enjoyed it the most.

This milk bar is classic too and the one that the majority of children award the gold medal, in my school workshops. This is because it is more like the chocolate that they are familiar with but at the same time, because of that, they are able to recognise its difference. It is a 43% bar with no added vanilla with all the flavour coming from the beans. They have learnt and tasted the difference during the session and appreciate it all the more.

They also love the fact that my ‘can’t live without bar’ is a milk bar ...no prizes for guessing which one - so they are encouraged that they won’t have to just eat dark chocolate when they become chocolate judges too!

Superbly crafted milk chocolate and children’s books encourage us to look beyond the ordinary, beyond our dry breakfast cereal and everyday chocolate and find adventure. An irresistible pairing for .

02/07/2024

Venezuelan cacao was on the menu at Louth Chocolate Tasters on Monday

It’s been a while since we had a full Venezuela line-up at tasting club and it was so difficult to pick just 8 bars…we did sneek in some ***es Sur del Lago praline truffles at the end though.
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The genetic and cultural history of cacao in Venezuela cannot be experienced in a single tasting but researching the geography and genetics of any Venezuelan bars you taste will give you a glimpse into its importance, variety and complexities.
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We made our journey in pairs starting south of the Lake Maracaibo original home to some native Western Venezuelan Criollos then moving East to the central area of Aragua and the ‘Modern’ Criollo base firstly to Las Trincheras, then north to finish with the prestigious isolated cacao estate of Chuao.

🍫🍫Porcelana, the ‘holy grail’ of cacao with 70% and 72%. Porcelana set the standard for the rest of the tasting! Such central, gentle, delicate notes that call out for further exploration.

🍫🍫Sur de Lago: - 84% and Aroko 71% pushing the delicate into the background and bringing the fruit and spice in from the introduction of more robust genetics.

🍫😊Trincheras: Rózsavölgyi Csokoláde 70% and 72% presenting a deep, earthy, nutty chocolate mix for a more classic dark chocolate experience from a good criollo base.

🍫🍫Chuao: Aroko 70% and Solkiki 70% to finish the show in glorious technicolour! These award-winning bars begging to be savoured and savoured and savoured again to taste the full potential of their mixed genetic make-up. Juicy, fruity, complex and persistent.
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Bars for this session, we sourced from , and directly from .

We could do another session with all the bars we missed.

What bars would be on your Venezuela line-up?

01/07/2024

After a jam-packed week of school workshops with the prepping of hundreds of chocolate samples, aromas samples and lots of driving, carrying and washing up in-between, its good to remind yourself why you are doing it all...

although just being in front of a classroom full of children all focusing intently on the flavours they can detect in their chocolate rather than just chomping on the the fat and sugar is really enough reward!.

Feedback like this is also a welcome reminder.

Thank you Stuart Spendlow for your kind feedback and for letting me teach your amazing class about the Maya, the history of chocolate, fine-flavour chocolate and how to taste like a professional. You have some great potential chocolate judges there at Grimoldby Primary School.

It’s interesting that as a language student, I was pressured to go into teaching, but at the time, that was the one thing I didn’t want to do. In every job I have done, I have gravitated towards training and informal teaching until I realised that teaching was the thing I enjoyed most and I have found a way, through my passion for chocolate, to teach. Words like these tell me I took the right path.

However, I have such respect for all the teachers I meet at these workshops, I simply go in and out with my 90 minutes of chocolate study, but holding the interest of a class day-in, day-out is the truly remarkable achievement.

19/06/2024

The rain kept us out of the garden for our summer chocolate book club gathering, (swipe to see the wild garden- sadly behind glass) but the company, conversation and chocolate education were there in abundance. 🍫📖

📖On the whole, we enjoyed reading The Island of Missing Trees but the consensus was that it left us feeling there was more to learn. More to learn about Cyprus and the realities of that line drawn across the island and through its communities; about the life of trees and how, when given a human voice, although insightful, this somehow diminished the wonder of its existence; about Ada, Kosta and Dephne and particularly the life they made outside of Cyprus and the contradictions in their need to heal the scars and reject their heritage.
🇨🇾🇬🇧
🍫My chocolate choices explored our knowledge and understanding of some the book’s themes and literary devices:

🍫Cacao grown in Tanzania crafted by in Ukraine. The taste of this bar crafted in a current conflict took us back to the unity, resilience and joy of the gatherings at the Happy Fig tavern.

🍫🍫Our Polochic Valley Guatemala, by referenced, as the book did, the desaparecidos in the Guatemalan Civil war (1960-1996). According to the ICMP over 40,000 people disappeared and 83% of victims were Maya. This is something we had no idea about!

🍫🍫🍫Our third link was to songbirds, explored through the Zorzal bar by prompting a return to discussions of the slaughter of songbirds, of greed, cultural misappropriation and the possibilities of social enterprise.

🍫🍫🍫🍫Butterflies, a symbol of hope in the book and an indicator of healthy ecosystems like those seek to create and protect through the cultivation of the cacao blanco in their Piura bar.

🍫📖Far reaching book and chocolate discussions with the joys of shared tasting experience on top!

The books in the stack were those referenced during our discussions.

19/06/2024

Find me at The Lincolnshire Kitchen, 10:20am Thursday 20th June

First appearance at today.

I'll be back again tomorrow with a tasting of the finest chocolate in Lincolnshire made by Duffy's Chocolate in Humberston with a comparative tasting of more traditional chocolate from Belgium and Switzerland.

I will be proving that dark chocolate doesn't have to be bitter too.

See you there!

17/06/2024

Year 4s at Chapel St Leonards Primary School honing their senses of taste and smell to get the best out of the Duffy's Chocolate they were getting ready to judge!
A great class.

12/06/2024

We are keeping the fun in fine chocolate with our summer Cocoa Loca event on Saturday 13th July.

A cocktail evening exploring the potential of cacao to bring a range of flavour experiences to the table.

Our summer mixes showcase:

Cacao pulp juice from via (🙏🙏🙏🙏) in our new Rum based cocktail - yet to be revealed!

Cocoa nibs from in our Rhubarb Brownie Fizz - made with homemade rhubarb syrup and our local Rhubarb Vodka.

White chocolate from in our new White Chuncho Cashew Martini

We will be tasting the juice, nibs and chocolate separately to learn how the character has been preserved and/or enhanced in the cocktails.

Tickets available from The Brown Cow, Louth Tel. 01507 605146

See you there!

09/06/2024

J is for juxtaposition this wee.

J is also for joyous - the feeling when you look through your Caribbean bars and find a vintage un-opened Jamaica bar perfect for a double J for Jamaica and juxtaposition.

So I’m feeling jubilant about my find of the Tulloch Estate “The Fermentation Project” 76% Jamaica bar.
🍫🇯🇲
This is a juxtaposition bar in so many ways highlighting the differences and similarities in cultures, people and craftsmanship of the Tulloch Estates in Jamaica and Pump Street in Orford, Suffolk.
🇯🇲🇬🇧🍫🍞

🇬🇧🍞For me bread signifies home, comfort, familiarity: our daily bread, something closely associated with my upbringing and culture.
🇯🇲🍫Chocolate used to be the same but it is now firmly related to something far from familiar: the tropics, a world I have read about, watched on a screen, met people from and want you to get to know but is in the main, out of reach.

🍞🍫Sourdough brings a wild edge to bread, bringing bread and cacao that little bit closer. This bar literally mixes the two. I would love to think of the microbes from the hands both Chris and and Roger contributing to this process and character of the resulting flavour precursors too.

In this bar I want to taste the Caribbean, the exotic, the unfamiliar, the complex skilfully balanced with the familiar, reassuring and comforting notes of home.

The aroma promises depths of dark treacle toffee and chocolate cake.
The taste delivers juicy rum soaked raisins, chocolate ice cream, a whiff of malt loaf, and finishes with bonfire toffee which softens in the long afterglow.

This was a bar with waiting for.

04/06/2024

29/05/2024

Celebrating an Integrally Indian Identity for this weeks post. Twinning with and and their India bars with a tangent bringing forward cacao from a different area and The craftsmanship of an intrepid Indian maker.

This post was also inspired by recent post about farmers ‘doing what they can with what they have’ which is in this case is being facilitated by the investment in post harvest practices and and making processes all focussed on flavour to give access to a higher value market.

This bar is made by Manam Chocolate with cacao farmed by Mr GVS Prasad, in the Tadikalapudi village, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh and the pack tells us Mr Prasad’s farm was one of Manam’s first farmer members, an engineer turned organic farmer who has spend over 25 years trying to improve his native soil’s health for future generations.

I know, because the QR code tells me that the beans were harvested on 25/11/22 that they arrived at the Distinct Origins fermentary on 27/11/22 and cut on 28/11/22 when their fermentation began in a tech-monitored box system and and they completed their fermentation on 3/12/22 when they began their drying process alternating between sun and shade.
The beans were sorted on 10/12/22, and arrived at the Manam Chocolate Factory in Karkhana ready to be transformed from bean to bar into chocolate and there are more details on the pack about how that is done. This is not just traceability but recognition of the skill involved in every part of the process.

This is a 68% dark bar that would be a good introduction chocolate to tempt milk chocolate lovers, with a taste that is just what it says on the pack: smooth, well balanced and comforting. Chocolatey, some light fruity melon notes, some almond and caramel. Delightful!

The innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of Manam Chocolate makes it one to watch.

27/05/2024

Our current chocolate book club read is absolutely captivating and so many themes to explore with craft chocolate pairings.

“A tree knows that life is all about self-learning. Under stress we make new combinations of DNA, new genetic variations. Not only stressed plants but also their offspring do this, even if they themselves might not have undergone any similar environmental or physical trauma. You might call it transgenerational memory. At the end of the day, we all remember for the same reason we try to forget: to survive in a world that neither understands nor values us.”

This amazing book is helping me see past the people, prices and beans in the current cacao crisis - not that they are not important - but it’s just a shift of focus bringing the work of botanists and natural systems into the picture, thank you too for your insights and experience here.

Slightly worried about my own fig tree with its roots contained on a pot. It may be time to change that I need to see what it is telling me!

Learning too about the history of Cyprus and the drawing of lines through cultures and the diverse postcolonial experiences.

Throughout the novel our sensory relationships with food, nature and pain help create connections and understanding.

Then there are the characters… but I need to finish it before I decide.

26/05/2024

Summer day trip around the UK via bars crafted by newer and more established makers with Louth Chocolate Tasters this week.
Our line-up was curated for a comparative tasting of differences of approach and consisted of:

🇵🇪 Piura Blanco, Peru Dark Milk 50%
🇵🇪 Piura Chililique Milk 50%

🇲🇬 Akessons Madagascar 70%
🇲🇬 Street Madagascar 72%

🇬🇹 Lachua Guatemala 70%
🇬🇹 Lachua Guatemala 72%

🇺🇬 Uganda 68%
🇺🇬 Uganda 70%

I snook in a little extra at the end which was a welcome surprise!
🇸🇻 El Salvador 70%

Some great craftsmanship and character. Our main observation was on the trend for using just two ingredients. This can be done very effectively but this tasting left us a bit disappointed and we couldn’t help feeling that they it would have been improved by a bit of extra cocoa butter! But, maker’s choice of course and great taste comparisons.

We will follow the progress of these makers as we have done the established ones and taste again when we get the opportunity.

Next month we are heading to Venezuela!! 😊😊🍫🍫

Our bars this time were purchased either directly from the maker or via or and big thanks to for their usual great hospitality.

I always forget to take photos on club nights but remembered this time, so the identities of the Louth Chocolate Tasters are revealed (well most of them anyway). 😁

23/05/2024

H is for the House of Heinde & Verre, a Dutch chocolate house or a house in South Holland if we are looking for a triple H for 😊

So what is the Heinde &Verre house style? Well, their methods and presentation are meticulous. They use Dutch Beet sugar, with its neutral taste that adds no flavour then use every technique available to them to pay homage to the beans and their character.

I was initially seduced by the packaging, the eco credentials and flavour journeys in their bars but I met Ewald and Jan Willem for the first time at Chocoa this year and was fascinated to learn more about their approach. They are truly obsessive about everything, not just their sourcing and environmental impact but their treatment of the beans to crafting of the flavours were truly inspirational. Meticulous in style and substance.

I am posting late because I didn’t have any H bars left, so I had to pinch this one from . Huge thanks and I will return at least some of it 😊.

To the taste experience. The aroma comes to find you! Red berries riding forth on the back of cashew nuts. No waiting around for the flavours to reveal either: redcurrants lead the way accompanied by honeydew melon, orange and another brighter, refreshing citrus, all leaping forth. They retreat but stay in range as the cashew and hazelnuts advance. Even after the finish line is crossed the pace continues on towards an orange and red sunset.

19/05/2024

G if for the gift that keeps on giving: our sensory experience.

I’m twinning with this week with a and the gift that is the taste experience resulting from Guido Castagna’s mastery of cacao and hazelnuts in his Giuinott and also in this MES (Metodo Naturale) Cuyagua bar -with no hazelnuts but with gloriously, central chocolate, cream and hazelnut notes. They recall the Giuinott experience, but have an added walk through the garden, with green grassy notes bringing light, air and colour to the performance.

G is also for Guitar, a reminder of the gift of synesthesia and how when I am tasting my memories are guided by music and colours which I have learnt to associate with taste, maybe due to my early love affair with John Williams and Villa-Lobos and my mastery of the classical guitar - now long gone sadly, along with my youth - but I still have the guitar and those sensory memories, and a brain that often routes my taste through them. This makes my ability to articulate flavours a little slower but I am forever grateful for the recall of this music and the feelings that come with it.

I know I am not alone here!

Also thankful to for these TTTT themes and the opportunity to explore these connections.

09/05/2024

To make up for missing this week I and doing a late twinning with with F is for Fermentation and taking a tangent from chocolate to cacao because this week I’m at the in London with and

I feel like the little boy in one of my school workshops who looked at me and said…”so all those flavours came out of just those cocoa beans? 🤔Wow, that just blows my mind!!” 🤯

30/04/2024

Twinning with .better.chocolate for week with Nicola Knight’s - founder of Exe in Exeter - exceedingly good El Salvador bar. 😋😋
🇸🇻🇸🇻🍫🍫

I have tasted this a number of times and it’s a real ‘return to’ bar.

This photo was taken on the sensory tasting experience on Morocco last April organised by taking the tasting experience to extremes!

The taste of the El Salvador cut through the sensory overload of the environment. I distinctly remember the green apple notes and the central chocolate and caramel notes.

It’s time to taste again I think.

( apologies Nicola for the edited pack to feature the ‘e’)

26/04/2024

23/04/2024

D is for Duffy and D is for Dominica, presented in a backdrop of D for the Dream by Henri Rousseau.

This is one of the bars chosen to pair with Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea read for our 20th anniversary book club, a repeat reading of the first book we read 20 years ago. This is also a repeat tasting of Duffy’s Dominica and as there are very few of these gorgeous bars left, I just want to give a huge thank you for letting me have one.

The beans used in this batch of bars were grown by a British couple on their farm in Dominica. They only sent one lot of beans to Duffy, who showcased their potential brilliantly. The beans are now put to good use in Dominica, where they are now made into chocolate on the island and sold at the farm.

The aroma brings to mind a malty flapjack, with the promise of red and brown fruit within. There is red fruit that starts bright but then deepens into dark cherry jam, raisins, treacle and liquorice with a dark treacly aftertaste. You can feel its dark, enticing presence long after the material encounter.

Jean Rhys was born and grew up on the island of Dominica, the origin of these beans. The wildness, complexity and allure of the Caribbean are present in both text and taste.

21/04/2024

Great company to collaborate with! Wishing them all the very best and continued success 🎂🎉

21/04/2024

Celebrating 20 years of Book Club with Louth Literary Coven (9 of those years also sharing books and craft chocolate).

Our book choice will be revealed shortly but our celebratory chocolate cocktails were real chocolate martinis ( deceptively big glass!) made to the recipe with Dominican Republic 65%. A classic and staple at any book club celebration, first introduced when reading the Tracey Emin’s Strangeland.

Friends, books, chocolate and the Lincolnshire landscape. Can’t ask for much more than that in a weekend.

Cheers to you all 🤎🤎



🙏🙏🙏🍫🍫🍫📚📚📚

Pictured with founding members Lara, Theresa and George with others who have joined us along the way. ❤️❤️🙏🙏

17/04/2024

Tasting the Sweet but remembering the Not so Sweet at Louth Chocolate Tasters Easter session (we were just a little late this year!)
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We started with bars showcasing the cacao of Sao Tome and Ghana. Thank you to and for working with this cacao and the farmers and traders in the way that you do.
🙏🙏🙏🍫🍫🍫😋😋😋
The past is not so sweet.

So many articles celebrate the making of the first Easter eggs – France and Germany followed by the first hollow egg by Fry’s in 1973 and Cadbury in 1975 - but no mention of the cacao that went into them.

As the principle source of cacao for both Fry’s and Cadbury at that time was Sao Tome, their slave plantations were the most likely source. Cadbury came to dominate the Easter egg market in the late 19th century and launched their first milk chocolate egg in 1905 while still sourcing from Sao Tome but in 1909, they changed their source to Ghana, after it became undeniable that the ‘low waged contract workers’ on the plantations in Sao Tome were to all intents and purposes still enslaved despite abolition in 1875.

The sweet section was a celebration of the range of Easter treats and flavours on offer this year:

Two seasonal bars from :
- Gibassier 62% - a skillfully crafted take on the French pastry. Chocolate made with cacao from West Papua combined with sourdough, aniseed and candied orange
- Pain Aux Amandes 38% - The texture and taste of the almond croissant combined with a dreamy milk chocolate made with beans from the women-run Kekeli Cooperative in Togo

Two Easter bars from :
-Sweet Easter with a light amarena cherry mousse
-Easter Toffee - a little too sweet for some of us but the brown butter in the ganache a winner for most

Simnel cake Barre from - spiced praline, candied oranges and raisins layered with almond marzipan in almond chocolate. A more than satisfying replacement for this glorious Easter bake.
Finishing with
- Japanese Nikka Whisky Chocolate - Just because we could and the deviation was worth it.