This evening was a real treat for the taste buds! Chantal had brought no less than eleven varieties/flavours of chocolate for us to try, but before we did, our anticipation was heightened while she described how it had been her dream to set up her own business, how she went about researching, designing and marketing her products, which, let’s face it, are pretty special, and with her company’s continuing success, her company philosophy. They use the freshest, highest quality ingredients, which Chantal often goes on field trips to source, from the different grades of cocoa beans to the basil, lime and geranium essential oils for different flavours of her Artisan Bars. It is two years since Chantal opened her second shop, in Marylebone High Street, (her first is in Kings Road), some products are sold in Waitrose, and she also sells them over the Internet at www.rococochocolates.com. Chantal also talked about where she finds her inspiration for new combinations of flavours, which was really interesting for us as perfumers! She described how one day, she had been sitting on the beach, found she had a salty taste in her mouth, and the inspiration for the Sea Salt flavour milk chocolate Artisan Bar was born! “Sea Salt and chocolate?” I hear you say, well you just have to try it to taste how good it is and in fact those flavours go together surprisingly well, and at the end of the meeting, Chantal asked for a quick show of hands to find which flavour had been the most popular, and the Sea Salt won hands down!
Here were the flavours we tried – the first three were from the French
company, Valrhona, a prestige brand of chocolate that Chantal stocks
in her shops as well as her own, and a pure, high % cocoa organic Grenada
Chocolate Company bar, and for reasons of comparison, Chantal had brought
along some Lindt and Sainsbury’s own high % cocoa chocolate
for us to try. These were followed by a selection of interesting and delicious
flavours taken from Chantal’s Artisan Bar range. The marks shown
below are my own ones of course, and before we started, I said, I could
not imagine saying “Never again” about any sort of chocolate! (See below
for what actually happened, because I actually did decide to give zero
to one of them! My comments are in italics.)
| Sample | Description/comment | Marks out of 10* |
| Valrhona Caraibe | Pure Trinitario 66%
Very smooth flavour |
7 |
| Valrhona Guanaja | Cuvee of fine beans 70%
Sweeter, more creamy |
8 |
| Valrhona Manjari | Pure Criollo 64%
Less sweet |
7 |
| Grenada 71% | Pure Trinitario, single estate 71%
Coffee like, leathery, forest floor |
0 |
| Lindt 85% | Unknown origin 85%
More vanillin-like, almost tobacco |
5 |
| Sainsbury’s 72% | Unknown origin 72%
Thin, tart flavour, compared to those above, coconut |
4 |
| Basil & Persian Lime | Rococo Artisan Bar
Hmm, basil with chocolate, not sure about this! |
3 |
| Earl Grey | Rococo Artisan Bar
Really nice, like a posh chocolate orange! |
9 |
| Rose | Rococo Artisan Bar
A little musty; dried petals rather than ‘Turkish Delight’ |
7 |
| Sea Salt | Rococo Artisan Bar
Interesting…! |
6 |
| Cardamom White | Rococo Artisan Bar
Interesting, strong cardamom flavour, couldn’t eat a lot of it, though |
6 |
*MARKS on a scale of 10 = unforgettable, truly magnificent, 5 = OK,
Zero = Never again!
You can see that after some deliberation, I decided I would not want to eat again the Grenada 71%, which had an intense, ‘earthy’ flavour to me, but of course it is all a matter of personal choice / taste, and clearly some people thought that one their favourite!
Some of the flavours we did not try this evening sound amazing, such as Geranium and Orange, or special Christmas flavours, Cranberry and Nutmeg, or Caramelised Almond sound divine! I also learnt about chocolate, how the percentage relates to the amount of pure cocoa in the chocolate, and for example it describes on one of the bar labels how the “65% cocoa content and a particularly high percentage of cocoa butter (the only fat used) which gives the bars their silky texture and crisp snap.” This was a most enjoyable and interesting evening, especially for the chocaholics among us!
Julie Towle
This report is the writer's interpretation of the event. It is not intended as a verbatim account and should not be read as such.
© Copyright British Society of Perfumers 2007