Gourmet Chocolate

Gourmet Experience

The word gourmet originates from the French term for a fine wine taster. Today it refers to foods that are of high quality with exquisite flavor and presentation. Gourmet implies sensuality. Gourmet foods are slow foods, or artisan foods, that depend on natural and essential flavors, as opposed to heavily processed fast foods, that rely on artificial and diluted ingredients. Gourmet foods can be simple or complex, but will always create a sense of pleasure. Gourmet chocolate perhaps most of all. Gourmet chocolate is typically a dark chocolate bar. Often the cocoa content is 70% or higher. Its aroma and taste evoke emotions of indulgence, ecstasy, and satisfaction. It is to be consumed in modest quantities and slowly in order that the richness of the lingering flavors and aromas reach the consumer. This is very different from eating an ordinary chocolate bar.

“...the mass-produced, colorfully wrapped logs of synthochoc pumped out of the mass-candy factories are to real chocolate what house plonk is to vintage Bordeaux or a Hong Kong knockoff is to a Savile Row suit. One is pedestrian, the other sublime. And while most people are happy gnawing on a Mars bar or choking down a Charleston Chew, real chocophiles … believe that life is too short to eat cheap chocolate.”
- Forbes Magazine, “The world’s most expensive chocolates”

Raw Materials

“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French author (Le Petit Prince)

As any chef will tell you, and as you probably know if you have ever ventured into the kitchen and tried to cook a great meal, the key to success is having excellent raw materials. Gourmet chocolate is no different. Using fine flavor beans is essential. Flavor potential is derived from the genetics of the cocoa tree. Cocoa trees (Species: Theobroma cacao) can be divided into three different morpho-geographical groups based on genetic origin, pod morphology and size, color and flavor of beans:

• Forastero

• Trinitario

• Criollo

Probably over 95% of all the trees, are of the Forastero group. These trees do not have the potential to produce flavor beans. Some exceptions produce a good rough chocolate taste, but none produces the complex, gourmet flavors of fine cocoa. Beans from Forastero trees are generally astringent, bitter and earthy, and the taste does not last long. Therefore, a lot of sugar and other ingredients have to be added to provide a sellable product.

Perhaps some 2%-5% of the world’s cocoa trees are of the Criollo and Trinitario families – the tree varieties that the Aztecs and Mayas used for their chocolate drink, indigenous to Central America. Today they are almost extinct and the beans from these trees are only harvested in scarce quantities from select plantations, mainly in the Caribbean, Venezuela, Papua New Guinea and Madagascar. Even among Criollo and Trinitario trees there is much variation due to natural genetic mutations over time. While many produce flavor beans, some are clearly superior and others inferior.

Amadei, a small Italian artisan chocolate maker uses flavor beans from Venezuela.

Venezuelan Criollo cocoa in production.

Gourmet chocolate produced by Valhrona uses only flavor beans.

Xoco’s Offer

In a painstaking process of evaluating DNA, production yields and flavor profiles, Xoco meticulously selected the finest trees to reproduce. Xoco currently reproduces five different outstanding Criollo/Trinitario varieties (genotypes). Manufacturers can elect to batch Xoco’s beans as single-origin, single-variety chocolate, or blend as seen fit. While flavor can vary slightly from estate to estate and from year to year, the flavor profiles of each of Xoco’s varieties are dominant and consistent. For more information on our products and process, please see Products and Services.

DNA analysis of cocoa establishes the genetic profile.

Trinitario cocoa beans before processing.

Using beans from Xoco’s mother trees, Friis-Holm produced a line of gourmet bars, available only in select stores in Scandinavia.

More information

Gourmet chocolate bar reviews

For further immersion into the wonderful world of gourmet chocolate, visit connoisseur website Seventy Percent. The website and blog offers dependable bar reviews and excellent perspectives on the latest activity in the gourmet chocolate bar market.

Flavor cocoa science

If you are interested in the science behind flavor beans, the Cocoa Research Unit (CRU) at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago has done most pioneering work in the field. Trinidad is home to the largest gene bank of cocoa in the world and the country has a rich history of cultivating flavor cocoa. Experts at CRU have extensively investigated cocoa genetics, tree productivity and disease resistance, fermentation and drying techniques and many other topics.

Recipes and other information

If you are just interested in great chocolate recipes and the background for the Xoco project, take a look at Robert Steinberg’s book Essence of Chocolate. Robert (1947-2008) was a founding investor in Xoco, as well as the co-founder of the chocolate maker Scharffenberger. Also, Danish chef and chocolate maker Mikkel Friis-Holm, who makes his ultra high-end chocolate based on beans from Xoco’s mother trees, has published a book Chokolade in Danish, for the few who master his language. His chocolates are available in select stores in Scandinavia under the brand Friis-Holm. For further information on gourmet chocolate available for purchase, Chocolopolis, a gourmet retailer based in Seattle, Washington, has an wide selection of bars available for online purchase.